Pat, I didn't realize it was a reportable offence. What kind of offence is it? Would that include Americans?
I'm wondering if the arriving Americans are given a crash course in metric usage and told to use it only. They need to be told quite frankly that trying to be different just to prove a point can cost property and lives, maybe theirs. Conversion charts are quite useless unless you have a calculator also on hand to do the actual conversion. And then what do you do once you converted the number? What if you have to communicate a unit to another fighter in a split second and can't because you are fumbling with your calculator and conversion chart? I can see American fire fighters more of a hindrance then a help in a dangerous situation like a fire covering thousands of square kilometres. I would just like to know what is done to keep communication errors and misunderstandings to a minimum. There really should be a law everywhere that requires fire fighters to use SI and be conversant in SI only. I can imagine a similar problem between the US and Canada, especially with Canada using metric equipment that won't adapt to American equipment. Dan ----- Original Message ---- From: Pat Naughtin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2007 5:56:06 PM Subject: [USMA:38263] Re: Fireys' lend hand in outback On 2007 03 18 4:06 AM, "Daniel Jackson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Using a conversion table is not adjusting. Using metric only is adjusting. http://www.redding.com/news/2007/mar/10/fireys-lend-hand-in-outback/ Dear All, These fires were only a few hundred kilometres from Geelong, so they are of more than academic interest to us here. However, that said, we fully appreciate the support we got from fire fighters internationally such as those from the USA. Our bush here is largely based on 'gum' trees of the Eucalyptus variety. Gum trees are called that because they often exude a waxy gum that when heated can become a fire accelerant. When the fireman from the USA is quoted as saying: Along with the language, Cravens and the other Americans also had to adjust to using the metric system. He said he had to keep a conversion chart handy so he could go from kilometers to miles, hectares to acres and Celsius to Fahrenheit. "I had to use my conversions a lot," he said. It is a reportable offence in Australian fire services for anyone involved in fighting a fire to use words such as inch, feet, and yards their use is simply too dangerous to the other 'fireys' around you. I have fought bush fires here and in tight situations you don't have margins for error as you look up your conversion tables while you try to decide whether the danger you are in is urgent. People fighting fires with a feet and inches mindset are a danger to everyone else fighting the fire with them who are highly trained to estimate distances in metres and kilometres, and areas in hectares and square kilometres. It is interesting that when the fireman was doing his 'metric conversions' he did them to convert away from the metric system and to the customary measures of the USA perhaps these would be better known as 'customary conversions'. Incidentally, this article dumbed down the Australian figures for readers in the USA: 124 miles looks a lot like 200 kilometres to me, and 2.5 million acres looks a lot like a million hectares. Cheers, Pat Naughtin PO Box 305, Belmont, 3216 Geelong, Australia Phone 61 3 5241 2008 Pat Naughtin is the editor of the free online monthly newsletter, 'Metrication matters'. Subscribe at http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter Pat is recognised as a Lifetime Certified Advanced Metrication Specialist (LCAMS) with the United States Metric Association. He is also editor of the 'Numbers and measurement' section of the Australian Government Publishing Service 'Style manual for writers, editors and printers'. He is a Member of the National Speakers Association of Australia and the International Federation for Professional Speakers. See: http://www.metricationmatters.com This email and its attachments are for the sole use of the addressee and may contain information that is confidential and/or legally privileged. This email and its attachments are subject to copyright and should not be partly or wholly reproduced without the consent of the copyright owner. Any unauthorised use of disclosure of this email or its attachments is prohibited. If you receive this email in error, please immediately delete it from your system and notify the sender by return email. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a PS3 game guru. Get your game face on with the latest PS3 news and previews at Yahoo! Games. http://videogames.yahoo.com/platform?platform=120121
