On June 10th at 5 PM SL time, The Second Life Fire and Rescue Department held a Firemans’ Ball in the NYC sim at the fire department building. Keira Colclough was the DJ at the party in the Second Life version of the Big Apple. It was held across the street from the fire station, with it’s trucks on display, looking detailed and shiny.
“We decided to host a firemans’ ball and invite other fire and rescue departments from SL,” SLFRD chief JayFizzle McGinnis told Second Life Newser, “We actually opened SLFRD on the grid in 2008, spent time on other sims up until about January this year when we moved SLFRD here to NYC. We provide fire and rescue for the city, and plan to move in to EMS and soon possibly a police dept. here.” He went on to explain the group was a “fire and rescue roleplay.”
So were there any fires the group felt were extra memorable? “The time I lit the station on fire,” SLFRD member Tyler Molinaxil answered, then laughed, “Cooking fire, (we) left to go on a false alarm, and came back, and there was fire coming from the roof.” “Yeah,” SLFRD member Francisdom Weder laughed, “the whole place lit up.” JayFizzle added, “But we handled the incident, rebuilt the station, and have new policies in place to prevent it from happening again.”
How did the idea for the ball start? JayFizzle answered, “We are low staffed at the moment, and tried to think of a way to get people here to the sim and recruit. So we decided to have a firefighters ball and tout our department a bit to them and hopefully get a few firefighter candidates. ... we are always looking for new hires to start the training process.” JayFizzle thought there were 49 at the event at one point.
The party did have a change of plans early on, “We were supposed to have a live fire demo at 5. However the chief officer in charge of that, like most of us, is a RL firefighter, and had a guy he knows get seriously injured on the job today. And we decided to go without the demos. It happens as the job itself is a dangerous one. Here at SLFD, we are unique in SL for the fact we pride ourselves on real firefighting tactics, and ninety percent of my staff and mainly all my officers are real fire fighters. Frankie for a fact,” he pointed at Francisdom, “that man is amazing.”
Between answering questions, there was much joking around between the firefighters, and laughs shared by all.
The NYC sim is owned by Cheri Bing, a native New Yorker. The sim was featured on the
CNN website due to it's 9-11 memorial.
Bixyl Shuftan
"The Man," outlined by green neon tubing, is set ablaze.
"The Man" is soon completely on fire.
Before long, the structure begins to fall apart.
Onlookers cheered as "The Man" burned, "WHOOOOOOOT!!"
One wag sang a parody of "The Weathergirls," "It's burning man... hallelujah! It's burning man!"
Just the feet are left standing.
And this is what's left of "The Man," fallen half-burnt timbers, and a smaller bonfire.
Debbie Trilling shouted, "Pile logs on the fire to keep it burning. No logs, and it will die to an ember!" And pile the logs on people did.
