Homeschool group field trip ~ October part 1

This month for our field trip we went to the Firefighters Museum and the Archway in Kearney. We had a pretty big group that came. We learned lots and enjoyed ourselves! Here are some pictures of our day!

I am doing this in 2 parts so the Archway will be tomorrow.

First we went to the Firefighters museum. I have to say wow they put a lot of work into this place. They will be adding onto it soon. They are going to add a EMT wing when they get the money saved.

Did you know the reasons behind having the Dalmatian as the firehouse dog? Well it started because before we have trucks to pull the fire equipment around they used horses and what to horses eat? Hay. What is attracted by to live in hay? Rats. and what kind of animal is a goo at hunting rats? Dalmatian's. Then as they had these dogs in the firehouses they found out that horses and Dalmatian's get along real well.

 

Next little lesson for you all. Do you know why they had a pole in the fire stations? Well you can get down them faster then stairs and there is less of a chance of you getting hurt sliding down a pole then it is running down a flight of stairs in a hurry.

As for stairs in a fire house they were spiral. Know why? Because horses like to climb up stairs. Now that I thought was just funny!

 

 

Here are 2 of their different kids of protections that they wear. The silver space suit looking one is for high temp fires. and the black one is just a really big rain coat to keep them dry.

 

 

 

 

Look at these suits. This is what the men wore for special occasions and such. The family of the men who owned these had such great honor for their family members services they kept these suits in such great condition that the museum did not have to do anything to restore them!

 

 

 

 

Can you imagine our fire fighters today carrying around these huge radios around so they know when to head to help someone? You know what I thought was very cool about these radios? They were made in a small town 10 miles from us.

 

 

 

 

 

This wall was very neat. It is a time line of large fires in the state of Nebraska.

 

 

Can you imagine having the time when our firemen had to pull there equipment to a fire by pulling a cart by hand?

 

 

 

 

Next they moved up to horses. The bad part about this in the horses are scared of fire. Here is where the Dalmatian's cam in handy was keeping the horses calm

 

 

Then there were vehicles.

 

 

 

 

 

Can you see what's odd in this picture?

There are women firefighters. It is not only for men now.

Did you know that back in the early days of firefighting that it was against the law if you did NOT have a bucket of water hanging outside your front door. This was so when there was a fire you could grab it and run to where the fire was and help to put it out. Fires in those days destroyed whole towns. Do you see the weird shaped buckets? They were made that way to keep from 2 things happening. One so the farmers didn’t steal your buckets to use as feed or water buckets, and secondly so you couldn’t set them down while you were in the water line at a fire because they would not stand up. This kept the water line moving.

Here is a picture of some fire extinguisher's that were kept in homes. Do you see the colored light bulb looking things? These were in homes in each room of houses. They were made in different colors to match décor. Inside of them was a chemical that when a fire started some one would through it at the fire and it would suck the oxygen out  

This thing just looks scary! I cant even imagine what it would be like if I saw this below my window. Would I be happy? Its funny because when I saw this I thought to myself “I thought these were just in cartoons”. Oh boy am I silly.

 

 

 

 

Then we got to meet Smoky the bear. Sad to say I guess I took him for granted and I have never talked about him to my kids. So it was pretty said when the kids (not just my kids) had no idea who he was. We talk about fire safety I just have never talked about Smokey Bear. Well now they know who he is. They read a story about Smokey. The funny part was they have changed the story with the times. In the story they read someone called in a fire using a cell phone. Well back in the day no one had cell phones “hehe”!

Then they did a little coloring and building.

Next its play time!!