Trail Reports: A Night Off

Last night, at 11:55pm, was the 24th running of the Club Northwest Firecracker 5000, a 5 kilometer running race that circumnavigates Seattle Center twice before terminating in Memorial Stadium. For me it was a chance to reappear from Fire Academy and be a board member again. My brother-in-law Mike and I arrived early to help Nick, the official "Banana Man", with the banana-apple-orange table. We also supported the pre-entry"find your number" table" prior to the run commencing. Apparently there was a Zombie Walk,

a Greed Day concert and a local Micro brew festival in an around Seattle Center just prior to the run. This young zombie walker was a bit spooky but turned out to be a pretty good runner too. The shirts this year have a screened glow-in-the-dark moon that needed charging.

Bill Roe, the guy in the orange shirt with the microphone,

was the announcer. His voice has been the voice of many a race in the Seattle area for many years. At 11:50 we all took the line and awaited the official okeedokee from the Seattle Police indicating the course was clear.

And they're off!!!

I tried to document the run but hey it was after midnight and my little camera was not illuminating as well as I would have hoped. Here are a couple shots of the runners and a few bystanders at a local pub.

The race was a good study break from the Fire Academy. the family is off in Vermont for the annual Hirst Family Vacation. I missed this year, but it seems to be a good year to miss as it has been raining in Vermont for the past week and the weather here has been SPECTACULAR!!

Meanwhile back at the Fire Academy we finish our last week of burning for our Firefighter I certification.

We had another round of "cars on the curb" working on flaming liquid fuel fires.

That's me with the nozzle cooling off the engine block of the car behind the flaming van.

We proceeded to the leaking LPG tank for a wonderful example of how a full fog pattern can hold back a lot of flame. The heat still radiates through the water droplets but the stream forms a cone of low pressure and keep "most" of the flames inside.