Practice makes perfect
<p>Brad Van Ert, a division chief for Northern Lakes Fire Protection District, operates the spray nozzle on the bow of the department’s fireboat during a practice run Tuesday on Hayden Lake.</p>
<p>Mike Mather, far left, and Brad Van Ert, division chiefs with Northern Lakes, pull Press reporter Jeff Selle safely back to the boat after throwing out a life preserver during a man-overboard exercise.</p>
<p>Deputy Fire Chief Pat Riley operates the Northern Lakes Fire Protection District’s fireboat.</p>
<p>Northern Lakes’ fireboat is capable of spraying water up to 1,200 vertical feet at a rate of about 1,500 gallons of water per minute.</p>
HAYDEN - Northern Lakes firefighters practice at least once a year on their fire boat that's moored on Hayden Lake.
Sometimes they like to take a journalist as their test dummy, and this time that dummy was me.
Jim Lyon, a spokesman for the fire agency, began setting up a ride-along weeks ago with my editor, but waited to spring the test dummy part on me until Monday afternoon.
"We will be doing four things and one of those is toss you in the water and then we'll come around and rescue you," he said.
To be fair he gave me an opportunity to back out, but my editors (and my wife) encouraged me to do it.
On Tuesday a crew of three firefighters practiced deploying the fire boat, fighting a mock boat fire, fighting a mock shoreline fire and rescuing someone from the water after a boat fire.
Lyon said most people on the lake don't realize what an asset the fire boat is. It can be used for the actions above but it can also be used for medical transport, when someone on the far north end of the lake is in need of medical attention.
"It can sometimes take up to 30 minutes to get a truck out there on the roads," Lyon said, adding a boat can get to patients in half that time or better.
We also had a performance demonstration of the 30-foot SeaArk fireboat, which is powered by two 250-horsepower outboards and can do a complete 180-degree turn at full speed. Firefighter and boat captain Pat Riley said the boat has three compartments in the hull for collision protection. The boat is designed to remain floating even if two of the three compartments are breached and fill with water.
"It can do a complete 180 in one and a half boat lengths," said Riley as he powered up the boat and headed full speed across the lake and cranked the steering wheel, flipping the boat into a complete about-face.
The feeling of inertia holding me in place while my body stood horizontally in the cockpit of the boat through the high-speed sharp turn was exhilarating. I wanted to do it again. Riley obliged.
I could have done that all day, but we had work to do.
Riley piloted the boat toward the large rock wall near the The Falls housing development on the southwest shoreline of the lake. Riley and firefighters Mike Mather and Brad Van Ert explained how the water cannon mounted to the bow of the boat worked in conjunction with the outboard motors to keep the boat and its water on target.
The boat is capable of pumping 1,500 gallons of water a minute and can shoot water from the cannon while simultaneously supplying water to firefighters on the ground.
Lyon said the Timberlake Fire boat in Bayview was very effective last week battling fires along the shoreline and protected many homes from being lost to the Cape Horn Fire.
"We want people to know they can be very effective on structure fires and wildland fires," he said, adding nearly every fire agency in the Kootenai County area has at least one fire boat.
Van Ert explained how the column of water on the cannon can be adjusted. It has a series of nozzles that start with a narrow column that shoots 500 gallons a minute at 150 pounds of pressure per square inch as far as 100 yards away.
"That's enough to power the boat without the motors," he said, adding as the nozzles get bigger the amount of pressure and distance the cannon can shoot is reduced, but volume of water increases.
That's important to understand especially in the case of a boat fire. Mather tossed a buoy in the water as a target to demonstrate how firefighters attack a boat fire. He fired up the cannon and began chasing the buoy around the surface of the lake with the water cannon while Riley applied opposing pressure with the outboard motors to keep him on target.
After chasing the buoy awhile, Riley let me take the wheel for a few minutes. I spun the boat 360 degrees while staying in one place and fired the water cannon. It's called "spinning on axis" and it's not easy to master. The goal is to fire the cannon and steer the boat in place while not moving forward, giving the propellers just enough power to counter the push back from the thrust of the water cannon.
Press photographer Shawn Gust took to it like a duck to water.
After practicing his spinning on axis, Gust piloted the boat toward a shoreline attack of his own.
After a bit of that, it was time for the rescue. I don't know why that made me so nervous, but it did. It wasn't like I was skydiving. I've jumped in a lake thousands of times, but this time I didn't know what to expect.
Before the boat was deployed Riley handed out the hydrostatic life jackets and explained how they work. Uninflated, the vest was like wearing two empty pouches around my neck.
The vests are designed to inflate automatically when they reach a certain pressure underwater - if they don't deploy, there is a ripcord to deploy the vest manually.
"If it doesn't inflate right away don't panic," Riley said. "Remain calm and count one, one thousand, two, one thousand and when you get to five and it hasn't inflated, pull the ripcord."
That was going through my mind when it came time for my test dummy debut.
The crew removed a dive door from the side of the boat, and briefed me on the procedure they were going use to rescue me. Sounded straightforward enough, so I collected my nerves and took the leap.
"Here goes nothing," I yelled as I jumped feet first off the back of the boat.
I instantly started sinking and thinking to myself that I should have asked what to expect when the jacket inflated, but it was too late.
One, one thousand, two, one thousand, and just when I got to three, one thousand, I heard a pop and the jacket inflated almost instantly and I soared to the surface like a fishing bobber from which a fish just shook loose.
I lay on my back as the crew tossed me a life ring and reeled me in. Shooting from the water like that was an interesting experience.
Riley told me the jacket they gave me was a year old, and they had to test one to make sure it still worked. I am glad they didn't say that before I jumped.
On the way back to the dock, Gust, the press photographer, rode with us. He had only watched the high speed 180s that we did on the way out, so I asked Riley to do another. He obliged.
It occurred to me at that moment what I would buy if I won the lottery - a SeaArk fireboat would be at the top of the list.