Former safety officer and Alpha Alum Tom Ellis brings us this report from his new position within Raytheon.  He is now based out of Denver, CO for Raytheon and also does some work in Antartica. Tom is pictured in the red jacket with our brother firefighters from the McMurdo Fire Station.

The report from Tom:

This is the Antarctic Fire Department, they cover McMurdo Station here; the 3 airfields here; all the runways are cut into the galcier and made of ice and snow  (fixed wing operations include C-130s, C-17s, and Twin Otters) + the helo base here + the South Pole and the runway there as well.  As you can imagine there are extreme weather challenges fire fighting in this environment.  Here at McMurdo we have been blessed with unusually warm weather this week so far, the temperature went up to an incredible heat wave of 40 degrees F (T-shirt and shorts weather for here).  South Pole was -23 degrees F today.

The Department runs EMS with a 1 BLS bus and 1 ALS bus here at McMurdo along with 1 Engine + 1 reserve Engine + a tanker, all older model Pierces.  Everything has lift kits and massive tires for the ice and snow ops.  More pictures of apparatus to come later. 

  Below: The entire McMurdo Station