laughter does wonders. that is a lesson i’ll not forget soon.

the peanut gallery got together today, a collection of folk i’ve spent time with in antarctica before. they’re a great group, and sarcasm flows thick when we’re around one another.

we gathered up a collection of south pole winter over candidates, both primary and alternate, for our first day of fire school. though many of us expect to be spending our next year in the deep south, we are all technically “candidates” until the last flight leaves south pole on february 15 of 2008. at that time, whoever is left on station (there should be 65 of us) will be considered the “successful” candidates.

what this means in reality is that the people we will get to know over the next two weeks may or may not be spending the eight months of winter with us. some people simply drop out first, others encounter medical, psychological, or familial difficulties, some get better offers, and some never have a job materialize. still, we all travel through a set of training that includes structural firefighting, incident and crisis management, and medical first responder training. we do this because we will need to be a self-supporting, self-reliant, and self-sustaining group for the eight months of isolation over winter.

in effect, we are getting the first taste of the family that we will spend eight months of our lives with and some of them might not make it to the start.

lessons today included an introduction to the incident command structure, basic radio protocol, how to don and doff our bunker gear, and team building.

the ICS (incendent command structure) is a scalable way to deal with an emergency situation so simple as requiring one or two people up to the size and management necessary for an event the size of the I-35 bridge collapse or 9-11. it’s a hierarchical structure designed so that any one person in charge of other persons never has to speak with more than 3-7 groups. it came out of wildland firefighting, where the numbers of people fighting the fire can balloon from several to several hundred in a day. the need, in that situation, for a coordinated front to prevent confusion, loss of communication, and overlapping areas of responsibility is immense. this setup creates the ability to minimize and mitigate issues that arise in coordinating large groups. being more a-type than i would care to admit, i ate it up.

as for our bunker gear (the protective clothing that all members of a fire brigade wear), we took some time to fit the various bits (hoodie, helmet, boots, pants, coat, and gloves), and then practiced getting all of it on and checking our neighbors to see if they were dressed correctly and safely. we kept at the practice until we were all able to do this in under a minute.

finally, the team building didn’t take the usual route it might if you’ve experience doing team building with younger groups of folk. instead, we focused on discussing values, where conflict might arise in a group where values differ, what we held in common, and stories of why we were where we were, preparing to winter at the south pole. in a surprise, the stories that were told by our team members were heartfelt and truthful, much more so than i would have suspected. there was a leap of faith offered, trust given to a group that is still only one day old. what we have is a commitment and loyalty. each of us has chosen to spend a winter at the south pole. in effect, we have chosen to be a part of a family for those eight months - a very tight-nit, inter-dependent family that doesn’t get to go anywhere else to get away when frustrations rise. we will depend on each other for food, light, laughter, warmth, friendship, power… in essence, we will be depending on each other for life.

today was the start of that realization. a dependent truth that may or may not be spoken of, may or may not be present in thought or worry, but a truth that commitment and loyalty act toward, with, and upon.

tomorrow, we play with fire.