Some friends of ours know a firefighter who works out at the Victoria International Airport. He invited our kids out to get a little tour, and to ride in a firetruck. I was pretty pumped to see the trucks too, so I was extra special to make sure that the camera was primed and ready to go. We were not disappointed. The firetrucks are huge and insanely cool. We got to climb in one, go for a short ride, spray water using the canon (Sprout’s friend hit the button to do that), and turn on the siren (Sprout hit the button for that).

This is their newest truck, and they’ve only had it for 8 months. On the front of the truck there was a spray nozzle that is directed from within the cab using a joystick. Next to the joystick is a screen showing an infrared view of what the nozzle is seeing. We could clearly see the hot spots on a person standing in front of the camera.

This is the truck we rode in. It’s hard to get the right scale in this picture, but that step on the back bumper was about 3 feet off the ground, and the tires are about 4 feet tall, and extremely wide.

Inside the cab there was a lot of equipment, indicators, levers, switches and gauges.

That is one happy boy. He was a little stunned at first, and was quite overwhelmed, but I think he had a great time. I know I did.

I never would have thought that Victoria International Airport would have so much big equipment. I always think of it as a rinky-dink airport with nothing much going on. I was pretty impressed with their setup.