Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 01/02/2008 - 08:23

Hi Kirk, The students were fascinated by the picture of the Fire Department sign.  Our question is:  How do they fight fires in Antarctica ?  The students realize that melting ice to get water wouldn't work.  They think maybe the firefighters use  a fire retardent spray.  How do they keep the spray from freezing?  We figured out that fire retardent foam wouldn't workl either. 

They loved the pictures of the blue penguin and the tracked truck.  Do you have any more penguin pictures so we could see the size fo the birds?  Are the blue penguins rare?

 

Other questions:  Are there models of those cool tracked trucks available?  How do the people at McMurdo heat the buildings to keep warm?

 

We will look forward to reading your answers.

Barney and class

 

Kirk Beckendorf

Hi Barney and students,So many great questions. I'm going to have to do some checking to be able to answer them. One of the guys that I was in snow school (journal and pics coming soon) with is a fireman here, I will check with him about firefighting techniques, and then get back to you.
Sorry but I do not have any other pictures of penguins. Those could end up being the only ones that I see. Those were actually chicks and they were in manmade "nest" that I peeked into.
There is a small gift shop/store here at McMurdo, I did not see any models of the vehicles there, maybe you could find some online somewhere. Today I received training on three different vehicles (one was just a pickup) that we will be usin. I'll post pics of them as we actually start using them. If you wanted to do a search for models they were called a Piston Bully and a MacTrack.
I asked about heating the buildings, but I will need to ask some maintenance people to get a better answer. The short answer appears to be, generators (I am not sure what fuel) to provide electricity for heat and light. 
KIrk