Fire Training Device
Sometime a "Job Well Done" just takes time and patience
“When you can only work on something 42 minutes a day, just a few days a week, it takes a long time to get a big project done.” Jack Morris, welding instructor at Delta High School, thus described work on the confined space entry training device built there over the course of nearly four school years.
It started in the summer of 2000 when the North Star Volunteer Fire Department assisted Alyeska Pipeline Service Company with a check valve replacement project at Milepost 74 on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. North Star developed a plan to deal with possible fires or spills during the project, then provided standby personnel and equipment during three days of critical project work.
In return, Alyeska agreed to help North Star construct a training device to assist with educating Fairbanks firefighters in confined space entry rescue.
Estimates for construction of such a device proved prohibitively expensive. In 2001, Vicki Swanson, Alyeska Safety Specialist, proposed a community partnership involving Delta High School, Alyeska Pipeline, Airgas, and Denali Safety Council to get the job done and agreed to coordinate the project.
- Delta High School Drafting Class students would design the device and Welding Class students would build it.
- Alyeska Pipeline would contribute 48-inch and 36-inch pipe, welding rod, grating, and sheet metal.
- Airgas in Fairbanks would provide welding hoods, jackets, gloves, eye protection, welding rod, and other supplies to Delta High School at substantial discounts.
- Denali Safety Council and Pump Station 9 would contribute money to purchase the supplies from Airgas.
- ASRC / Pipeline, Power & Communications (PPC) would transport the finished device from Delta to Fairbanks, sandblast & paint it, and deliver it to North Star Volunteer Fire Department in North Pole.
The training device consists of a 12-foot length of 48-inch pipe with a vertical hatch of 36-inch pipe welded at the center. A ladder leads from the base to a square platform atop the hatch. Delta’s student welders called it “The Submarine.” It weighs nearly two tons.
Those to be trained will climb to the platform, descend into pipe through the hatch, and execute various confined-space gas testing and rescue maneuvers inside. Doors at open ends of the main pipe allow training to be conducted in either light or darkness or in thick smoke.
The original class of Delta welders who started work on the project graduated some years ago. But work went on, 42 minutes a day, in succeeding school years until The Submarine was at last completed in 2005.
PPC then moved the device to Fairbanks, sandblasted and painted it Delta High School colors, and installed a plaque honoring all participants. Representatives of Alyeska, Airgas, Pump Station 9, and Denali Safety Council presented it to North Star Volunteer Fire Department on August 18.