Sierra Madre Firefighters Train with Live Fire Truck
By Terry Miller
Published: Friday, October 23rd, 2009
City Will Have 14 New Firefighters after Saturday Graduation
Sierra Madre Fire Marshall Richard Snyder was on hand Sunday when the team of Sierra Madre and other area firefighters got a chance to practice their skills in a live fire situation a with the North Tree Fire Training vehicle .
The vehicles train firefighters in a live fire environment, using customized scenarios to fitting a particular department’s needs. Scenarios Include: Kitchen fires, second story bedroom fires, hazardous material, basement, garage and ceiling rollover fires.
According to professionals in the field, the Mobile Live Fire Trainer provides an excellent educational opportunity for line personnel, volunteers, recruits, and academy firefighters.
According to Snyder, the dept. gets to practice with this state of the art Live Fire Truck ( North Tree Fire International) about twice a year. The truck, one of the largest of its kind, allows firefighters to practice dealing with the 700- 800 degree heat of a burning building and the smoke that inevitably comes with fire.
It is more of a ceiling rollover with flames spreading wall to wall to a depth of one to two feet.
According to their website: North Tree International says: “A flashover is not an environment that we want firefighters to be in but we want to teach them to recognize the signs so that they can reduce the chances of being caught in a flashover.”
A total of 50 firefighters participated in Sunday’s exercises at the City Yard and 35 of those were Sierra Madre firefighters. Other area departments included: Baldwin Lake, Pinkerton and Arcadia.
As the firefighters prepared to enter the burning rooms, there was obvious adrenalin pumping as well as H20.
The first firefighter to enter manned the water nozzle and the number two firefighter being the leader, and the number 3 enter the building humps the hose. They work as a well oiled machine and quickly assess the situation and extinguish the fire as quickly and safely as possible. Each team quickly got the door open and entered the smoke and fire was visibly rolling over the ceiling, the door closed.
Within a few minutes, the men and women returned from their “fire” to a briefing from their respective Commanding Officers. With the sweat pouring from their brows, one seasoned senior firefighter patted the new recruits on the back. “Hey, don’t worry if you made a mistake here. You’re learning, that’s what’s important here.” Synder concurred and said this is some of the best training any young firefighter can get. Monies from the general fund pays for the training and usually the other cities involved kick in amounts to train their respective firefighters.
On the long, elaborate vehicle which resembles a large Winabago, there are two fire rooms on the main floor and one fire that is raised into place hydraulically to form a second floor. An “L” shaped corridor leads to the front room on the first floor that contains a “Hazmat” rack fire. The back room on the first floor contains a kitchen range top fire that is combined with a room rollover or flashover fire. The upper room contains a bed fire. The firefighters quickly learn how to deal with all of the possible scenarios with and with temps. Averaging at 500-700 degrees, they get quite a workout
There are many options for fire scenarios within the MLFT. Entrance can be made to any of the first floor fire rooms from the entry corridor or through an exterior door to directly to each room from the outside. Entrance can also be made by placing a ladder the second story and entering through the second floor doorway. Fire rooms can be ignited individually, in sequence, or all at once.
Member of the graduating class said the fire trainer was an invaluable tool for their next call which just might be a real fire. According to Sierra Madre Fire Marshall Rich Synder this training was a real “eye opener” for many of the new graduates.
The Fire Academy will graduate 14 new members who will be joining the Sierra Madre Dept. ranks and bringing the total number of firefighters for the city to 54. This will bring the compliment of female firefighters to 5 for the City of Sierra Madre.
The Graduation ceremony will be held Saturday at the Youth Activities Center (YAC) .
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