Fantastic blog to read - thanks!

I sent it on to my father who spent time in Antarctica during the early 80s so it'll probably jog some memories to tell me.

I've seen a lot of posts to that site. Really enjoyable reading. Like another world.

I mentioned this in another thread, but the website is out of date. The contracts for McMurdo firefighting are currently held with Amentum: https://www.amentumcareers.com/jobs/firefighter-mcmurdo-stat...

Here's the picture: https://www.pae.com/career

...that's either the best or the worst job advert.

The website is out of date. The firefighting contracts used to be owned by Lockheed Martin, then PAE group, and now Amentum.

(edit: As proof, here's Amentum's listing for a McMurdo firefighter: https://www.amentumcareers.com/jobs/firefighter-mcmurdo-stat...)

Its a unit of Lockheed Martin performing under a contract with the NSF, yes (see the About Us and the Read More in the footer.)

Now that's what you call high specific heat capacity!

I'm probably stating the obvious, but any human stuff is definitely flammable. What do they do for heat anyway? I'd imagine they use oil or gas, which sounds like a big logistic challenge away from any ports.

Anyway, I'd imagine they mainly get oil/gas fires or electrical fires, for which it'd be better to use foam or whatever is best for electrical. If they use water, they'd keep the hoses dry and warm and use a de-icer like glycol.

> the hardest place in the world for fire to do it's thing (Everything is ice)

I wondered, as IIRC newspaper doesn't burn (sustained) on top of Everest (9 km)... But it seems trash is burned (or buried) in "highest permanently inhabited place" La Rinconada Peru (5 km). South Pole is only 3 km, and Antarctica's Mount Vinson is 5 km. Though nicely cold. Anoxic caves like Movile Cave seem a pO2 equivalent of 6 to 9 km.

Have you seen the end of "The Thing"?

You can use penguins for pins down there.

Hard to find a good source, but this listicle [0] mentions wages around $150.000 for jobs like refueler, cook, communications officer, plumber, sparkie etc, and over 200K for a doctor or station leader. There's perks, bonuses etc on top of that. I wonder if they pay for their own room and board or if that's one of the perks; given they have a cook I suspect they have communal food at least.

[0] https://www.9news.com.au/national/all-the-job-openings-in-an...

My uninformed guess would be corrosion. Salt water will (eventually) destroy everything you know and love

Not to mention the bigoted penguins.

Imagine their training day...

Of which state? Why would it matter? They just want to know that a regional authority has given you a test to confirm that you know how to operate a motor vehicle and that you passed, just like renting a car.

I went camping with an EMS/Paramedic that did a stint at McMurdo station. He rode along with the fire crew, and one of their main off-base jobs was working ARFF on their rather difficult runway. IIRC, some of the planes would intentionally drop fuel pods, which then need to monitored while they burned off.

https://www.faa.gov/airports/airport_safety/aircraft_rescue_...

Ultimately, EMS/Paramedic spent most of his time performing his secondary duty - clearing the runway of penguins. They were not allowed to touch them, so they were instructed to keep their hands in the air and shimmy sideways in order to shoo them to safety. He did demonstrate this penguin shooing dance to us around the fire, which led to him gaining the nickname Zoidberg.

It's not. The fires to be fought are not natural fires but accidental ones relating to human activity.

The website just makes it all feel even more rugged and authentic

I was thinking that. And really chuffed to see things like

  $(function(){  
    $(".rollovers a").hover(function(){  
      $(this).children("span").fadeOut();  
    }, function(){  
      $(this).children("span").fadeIn();  
    })    
  });

We can, but it involves building your own websites, or volunteering for local organizations / charities / etc to build them, or pushing for simple website designs at your employer. The latter likely won't work due to branding and there being 10-100x as much budget available as strictly needed for an informational website.

I suppose the internet hasn't been very fast down there, and nobody has time to load dozens of scripts and tracking beacons when their science lab is on fire.

Raw clarity and focus

Yes. A fire is a natural threat that is in everyone's interest to address as quickly and forcefully as possible. Sexual harassment is an element of interpersonal politics, which necessarily involves painstakingly slow progress and a lighter touch to avoid going backwards. Of course as we get better and better at preventing natural threats, those too start to transition into the realm of politics. eg "Why do we have so many building codes when structure fires are so rare?"