The folks in High Level, Alberta spent the afternoon of May 8th refining their water hauling skills by running a tender shuttle drill. The drill was the culmination of our Rural Water Supply Operations Seminar which was sponsored and hosted by Chief Rodney Schmidt and the High Level Fire Department. The Town of High Level is located in far northern section of Alberta and besides the extreme cold of winter and the summer threat of wildfire, the greatest challenge for tender shuttle operations is getting tenders. When your mutual aid response is more than 70km away - running a tender shuttle can be quite a challenge. The seminar was attended by folks from the area as well as the North West Territories. Folks worked on using portable pumps to access remote water sources and they worked on operating a two-dump tank supply operation. This was our third visit to Alberta and once again...a great time was had. A complete summary will be posted in a week or so.
A Honda trash pump that was used on tested on Sunday.
Folks work through testing the flows of various portable pumps and determining the best set-up arrangement. A dugout (pond) at the HLFD training center was used as the supply source.
Flowtesting a portable pump.
Another challenge is the "spring thaw."
High Level FD Pump 2 (6,000 LPM) served as the dump site engine.
A good looking jet siphon stream.
High Level Engine 1 - a 5,000 LPM Superior pumper.
High Level FD Tender 1 carries 14,000 liters of water and has a 12,000 liter dump tank.
A 100mm Firemans Friend valve
Beaver First Nation's Tender 1 carries 6,800 liters of water and no dump tank.
Engine 1 operated the only fill site for the drill - which was an "open relay" supplied by two portable pumps.
