Smoke Training House

Again, inspired (or rather gently nudged) by Jared Polin's weekend theme, my photographs over the last few days have been with a very strong fire fighting theme. Jared set, in my opinion, quite a tough theme – Fire Hydrants – for the weekend of February 4th and 5th. Now being in the UK, our fire hydrants are lame in comparison to the American's elaborate cast scultpures, the most exciting thing being... a sign that says H.

Clearly not something that's going to win any photography awards, BUT I did know of something that might. My dad was a fireman for 25 years and as such I knew a fair few of the firemen in my town. Or at least enough for me to ask very politely if they would let me take a few photographs inside here.

This is the Derbyshire Smoke Training House, where new recruits and firefighters regularly (twice a month) get kitted out in their breathing apparatus and train in controlled conditions to locate and rescue bodies, extinguish internal fires and just learn to cope in situations where you literally cannot see your own hand 6" infront of your breathing mask.


I was very excited to try to shoot some photographs inside the smoke house and had my camera bag ready to explore. 


The interior is very very sooty, dirty and dusty as you'd imagine but surprisingly, unbelievably cramped. I yearned for a wide angle lens but had to try to squeeze some photos in with my 35-70mm variable aperture Nikon AF lens. That meant I had to pop my ISO up rather a lot as the widest I could get the aperture was f3.3. As such, these were captured at ISO 1600, which obviously leaned towards a black and white end image.

And all throughout the house are beds, sofas, televisions.

But no windows... at all! They're all covered with sheet metal, to hold in the synthetic smoke which regularly circulates through the narrow passageways.

All too quickly the tour around the interior was over and I was given free reign to take some photographs around the outside. Too many details and indeed, far too many photographs were taken. Here's just a few.

There's a set on my FlickR stream for the photographs I took at the Smoke Training House which you can have a look at here.


I actually had a very negative view of the photographs I came away with once I'd imported them into LightRoom. I was gutted I didn't have a wider angle lens to shoot inside with, and also that with hindsight I rushed through the interior photos just a little. After a nights sleep and several cups of tea I was feeling a little better about them and rather enjoyed editing the exposures and captures that I did have. 


I think I have made the most of the situation but I can't help but itch to go back inside and maybe break out the tripod. The only issue there is that the interior is just so dusty and the air is noxious which means you have to wear a simple breathing mask.


Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the little tour of the smoke house nearby, and no I'm off to try to limit the photographs down to just five to link up on Jared's forum thread over at FroKnowsPhoto.


And next time you see the news about a fire, or hear about one from a friend, just remember this post and some of the photos and try to put yourself in the situation of braving the smoke and heat to rescue maybe just one body from a building you can't even see in to find a doorway... or a door handle... or a bed.


Thanks everyone, see you all anon.


Chris