Fire Training in Thomson, Georgia

Thursday afternoon, Oct 11, six of us loaded the BAs and PPEs into Glenn's truck and ourselves into my Honda. Then off went Ed, Glenn, the Lieutenant, Wayne, Scott, and Jon to Thomson, Georgia for a structure fire training with their city department. Thomson Fire Department was training some of their new city firefighters for Thursday night's event, and Deputy Chief Johnny Crawley extended a kind invitation for us to join them. And that's our Jon there.


Thomson, you may recall, was one of our hosts for the live fire training day last November, also organized by the Georgia Fire Academy and a couple of other organizations. Thomson's Fire Department is a hybrid of full time, part time, and volunteer personnel. Thursday night's event was shorter - just three hours - but much more intensive and we ended up doing nearly as much as before.

Thomson has a resource we don't have - the use of several block houses for training purposes: smoke mazes, hose mazes, and as on Thursday night, controlled live fire. The houses are actually in the same neighborhood as the two real houses that we burned last November. Since these block houses don't themselves burn, a pile of pallets are used to simulate floors, ceiling, and walls:


Unfortunately most of the photos didn't turn out very well, so we don't have the hubbub captured properly here. The event last November was quite large, with well over a hundred folks involved, including training and safety crew. This was much smaller, perhaps 30, but very well organized and a model of procedure. A table on the sidewalk outside the building was the site for keeping track of firefighters entering the structure, leaving it, rotating to relive the previous Rapid Intervention Crew out back (RIC - in case something goes wrong), then rotating to rehab out front until it was our turn to go back in.

Here's Asst Chief/Training Officer Ed intently explaining something, I forget what:


And the rest of the crew, excepting the photographer and observer, Glenn, and Scott hidden in back of Lieutenant Anonymous:


Before the festivities began, we turned in our Personal (or Personnel, designations vary) Accountability System (PAS) tags that hang on the back of the helmets. Here's a WVFD firefighter waiting to go in with his Thomson partner, Junior Williams.


The Safety Officer stood at the door to radio the PAS table of our numbers and time of entry and exit. One partner went first and the other backed him up behind for an attack on the fire. Then they backed out, switched positions, and went back in for another attack. Backed out, turned the hose over to the next attack crew, and rotated out back of the house to replace the previous crew at the RIC station where there wasn't much to do but pant. At each interval we had to pass the IC table to announce our new station and they moved our PAS tags from one station to the next one. Then onto rehab, advising the IC table and getting our PAS tags moved once again. The system ensures that no one is left unaccounted for (unless someone fails to notify the table - that's the weak link).

There was very little time between each of the three attacks that we made, just enough to take the face mask off for a few minutes, then put it back on and go in again. It all has to be done on hand (note singular) and knees, since you're not supposed to stand up in a fire-involved structure (remember that!). In a real situation you might be inside for up to 20 minutes, the amount of air in the BA. We were inside for only 3-4 minutes at any time.

We finished up around 9:30, took off our PPEs and stashed them, thanked the Thomson folks, and went back to their station. They had loaded up our air tanks and refilled them for us in the meantime. We picked them up, put them in the back of Glenn's truck, and stopped for dinner before heading back to Wolfskin, arriving at the station around midnight to put things away before going home.

Thanks to Thomson Fire Department for their generosity in providing a fine training session.

--Wayne

Busy Weekend in Wolfskin

On our regular business meeting Oct 4 we all marvelled at the lack of fire calls in September, especially given the exceptional drought we've been in since the beginning of summer. September and October daily highs have regularly been 10-20 degF above normal, and you'd have thought that fire calls would have been more frequent.

The next day, on one of our regular 7-10 mile bike rides on the back roads in Wolfskin District, our luck ended. The pager went off as we were returning early Friday evening and we peddled madly back to the POVs and off to the fire station. The call was for a woods fire a bit northeast of Arnoldsville, and we worked with Arnoldsville VFD, Beaverdam VFD, and Crawford VFD until 9:30PM on that.

Then on Sunday morning, and again during a 10-mile bike ride way out in the dirt road sticks, the pager went off. This time we were at least a half-hour away from the POVs, so we had to call for a lift - fortunately Glenn was able to pick us up and drop us off.

This time it was a chickenhouse fire in the northwest part of the county. Lots of departments involved - at least ten fire trucks of various sorts. Wolfskin, Beaverdam, Arnoldsville, Crawford, Winterville, Devil's Pond, Pleasant Hill, Salem VFDs all present (let me know if I missed anyone!). We worked on that until well into the mid-afternoon, before leaving.

Within 30 minutes after returning home, the pager went off for a return - they needed the WVFD tanker and all available manpower. I was off to work and so was unable to participate, but everyone was involved in that until at least 7pm Sunday night. This time Red Cross and EMS had special treats for everyone, and thanks to them for that.

A busy weekend in Oglethorpe County.