Live Fire Training
The morning started out a smidge cool, but it didn’t take long for things to heat up – starting with a dumpster fire. This dumpster happened to be filled with broken up wooden pallets; typically they are full of who-knows-what and can be very dangerous because of the unknown fuel and debris. For this exercise it was drown the flames and confirm they were out. There were seven teams in my group and each team had a chance to practice it.
Flammable liquids training was up next and was definitely a favorite. Big flame, big smoke, big heat. Everyone took a turn on the nozzle for this one. The fuel was in a container the size of a small semi-trailer liquid-hauler cut in half horizontally. The goal of this exercise was to use water from the fire hose to corral the pool of burning liquid in a corner of the container and then extinguish it. Not as easy as it sounds! Liquids move quickly and can hide in the smallest of spaces. Add flames to that liquid and you have the potential for something seriously bad happening. This is why we train.
Practice with car fires was next on the agenda. My team volunteered to do this one twice. The first time through I was tasked with breaching the hood to look for an engine fire – a whack with the spike of a haligan tool and peel back the hood enough to check for fire. A few turns later and we were up again. As the nozzle person this time, I was challenged with fire in multiple locations – the front seat, the back seat and floor, even the trunk was involved. The instructors made sure it wasn’t much more that a burned-out metal shell when we were done. Luckily the engine was not on fire, too; however, my teammate used the haligan to peel back an edge of the hood and I put water through the opening just to be sure. You don’t mess around with a car fire – they can engulf a vehicle within moments.
Our busy morning was followed by lunch – plenty of pizza for everyone. After some food, rest, and recovery it was back to fire fighting.
My afternoon was spent at a specially constructed building used to train fire fighters on how to attack interior fires. When it was my team’s turn, I was initially the nozzle person, leading us to the fire. We crawled through a couple of rooms to come face to face with the fire and felt the heat of the flames. We watched it build up for a few moments, then I put a couple of quick bursts of water over it. The flames died back but didn’t go out. (This was intentional, as each person in the training needed to take a turn at the nozzle and it was easier to keep it burning instead of reigniting it each time.) We watched it build up again and then I put a couple more bursts of water on it and watched it die back again. While it was building up yet again our instructor made a radio call for an instructor outside the building to open an exterior door to that room. We then had some practice with using water not only for fire fighting but also for ventilation purposes.
Our backup team wanted some practice with making a rescue, so our instructor made a “practice-only emergency” radio call. Within seconds they were there for us. Impressive! After confirming we really were okay, they left and we got back to business. I moved back on the hose so my teammate could take a turn at the fire. He then did pretty much the same things I did to the fire. However, since we were the last team to use the building for the day he got the pleasure of fully extinguishing the fire. This took several bursts of water plus our instructor raking over the embers so that all the hot spots could be put out. Our day of training using actual, live fire was soon over.
Even though I missed out on Ely Garage Sale Day, it was worth it to work with and control fire.
