Fire Diving News From Around The World

Bonaire (ABC Islands)

It's come to my attention that some fire diving teams in areas where the incidence of an actual forest fire is small are purposely setting small blazes in hopes of being in better training when the coveted North American 'blaze' competitions are running in summer. This seems to be especially common with island teams, which is unfortunate here in Bonaire where one diver really ruined it for us all by setting a small fire in the national park. Not only did he chew up a lot of landscape, he landed on a cactus. Serves him right.
I implore everyone to find alternatives to using man made fires for training. Many people find that doing runs to a shark cage being towed behind a boat pretty good maneuverability/ entry training, and I personally practice by trying to intercept small watercraft with waterskiiers and grab their legs.
And everyone knows how easily scream practice can be got by such things as trying to navigate through a dark room with upturned hairbrushes. Fire diving has been getting a lot of bad rep lately, especially with firefighters claiming we take room meant for water (Come on, 160 pounds of water isn't doing much!) I've heard these recent incidents are even making PADI rethink designing it's comprehensive training course for 2000. Try to keep us 'clean' by keeping down our bad boy image!
On behalf of the ABC islands 'Flying Fire Turtles' dive team,
Bonaire division,
Melissa Drake

Florida USA

Although the fires in Florida were devastating to many homeowners, it provided me and several of my diving friends with an excellent opportunity to acquire nearly a hundred dives each.  Obviously, we couldn't openly brag about our experiences at the time.  But, now that all the fire fighters have returned home, I guess we can come out of the bucket.

The idea came to me when a fire fight'n helicopter crew chief sat next to me on the last leg of a cross-country flight from Atlanta to Jacksonville in July.  When he said the magic words, "Buckets of water", I near sucombed to Oxygen Narcosis.

The rest is history.  We lurked in streams, lakes and rivers.  They were everywhere.  Helicopters to the right of us, helicopters to the left of us. I was in Fire Diving heaven.  Swoosh, and I was one my way. Again & again.

So, the question is, how does one get the Technical Master Fire Diver Certification?  I'm not necessary a card collector, but we worked so hard on this one ... if you know what I mean.
Jim

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