Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Some background on the Antarctic Fire Department




AFD is a full time department working 24 on 24 off with a crew of about a dozen during the austral winter and around 50 during the austral summer. We have three stations- station 1 in McMurdo town, station 2 at the airfield, and station 3 covering the South Pole town/airfield. We are equipped for crash rescue, structural firefighting, hazmat, and EMS. Abundance of hazardous materials, importance of individual buildings to station operation, climatic extremes, limited staff and water supply, and lack of mutual aid all mean we have to respond and mitigate incidents with all possible speed. Apparatus include 2 engines, 2 ambos, 6 ARFF vehicles, and a command unit.

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