Peachtree City firefighters got some first-hand training this week using three small apartment buildings that are scheduled for demolition across from First Baptist Church.

Firefighters used the two-story buildings to simulate a real fire, but instead of burning the buildings down to simulate a large blaze the department used them to practice multiple real-life firefighting scenarios over a three-day period.

Fire crews worked on basic techniques such as climbing a stairway with a bulky water hose, breaking open a locked door and punching holes in the roof and breaking windows to ventilate smoke from the house, said Assistant Fire Chief Ed Eiswerth. Crews also got to punch holes in the ceiling and walls, a general technique necessary to help put out flames that may have spread throughout a building.

Although the city has a special burn building for fire training, it’s made out of cinder block so it can be used over and over, so there are walls, roof or windows to punch through, Eiswerth said.

Crews also practiced using their state-of-the-art handheld thermal imagers, which firefighters use inside the fire to discern where victims might be hiding. The device helped firefighters locate their “victims” which were actually dummies.

Peachtree City is fortunate to have one thermal imager on each fire engine, noted Capt. Peki Prince.

At one point, crews worked on lowering one of their dummy victims to the ground through a broken window.

To add another measure of real life, some of the drills featured a frantic and frustrated mother whose child was trapped inside; and the mother only spoke Spanish, creating a language barrier for the fire crews to overcome, Prince said.

The scenarios were also good practice for a newly-promoted group of fire commanders, who worked on using the communications system from their new role of authority, Eiswerth noted.

Some of the training was conducted at night so firefighters could get experience with a low visibility scenario, Prince said.

Adding authenticity to the training was that the fire crews had to respond from their stations or in some cases their own homes; the departments career and volunteer firefighters all got involved in the training, noted Eiswerth.

Barrels and wet hay were used to keep each fire under control yet produce enough smoke to make the scene realistic, Eiswerth said. For each scenario, a safety officer was inside the building to make sure safety measures were followed, he added.

And after each practice run, crews were debriefed as officials reviewed what went right, what went wrong and how things could be done better next time, Eiswerth said.

login to post comments