Laying the dummy gently on its back a safe distance from the building, the recruits immediately turned heel and double-timed back into the smoke-filled structure. A wave of heat rushed up to meet them from the open doorway as they disappeared back into the gloomy interior.
A few minutes later, Recruit Class 21’s lead instructor, Lt. Mike Webb, peeled off his helmet and facepiece to better observe his students clearing the scene.
His eyes fixed on a group of recruits rolling up hose lines nearby, Webb lifted a hand to dab absently at his forehead, frowning slightly as he glimpsed the sweat and grime smeared across his gloved fingertips.
“Man, I’m drenched right now,” Webb said with a chuckle, pulling his glove off and reaching for a bottle of vitamin water as his eyes returned to the recruits. “This is strenuous work and the demands on your body are significant, so they’re really earning their weekend right now.”
Watching the cadets take on tough tasks such as clearing a room and navigating a burning building, it’s hard to believe that the class was introduced to drills involving live structure fires less than a week earlier, Webb said.
Now in its sixth full week of training, the 24 cadets of Class 21 were noticeably more comfortable during hands-on training exercises than in previous weeks, Webb said.
“They’re moving with a purpose much better than when they started just four days ago with these fire evolutions. ... They’re doing a great job with actually extinguishing the fire, which is their main objective,” Webb said. “After they take care of that? Everything else gets better.”
In terms of the academy’s lesson plan, the recruits couldn’t have picked a better time to start clicking, as basement fires — the subject of Wednesday’s lesson — are among the most dangerous situations any firefighter can face.
Unlike many fires on the ground or upper floors, basement fires often restrict firefighters to a single way in or out, Webb said. Clearing basements of noxious smoke was also more difficult.
“If you have a fire on the second floor, eventually it burns out a window or vents through the roof,” Webb said. “You have all these places for the products of combustion to dissipate, whereas in a basement, all of that is confined; it amplifies the effects of the heat and reduced visibility.”
Taking a moment to get his supervisor caught up on the last group’s performance, Webb joined the class under a large white tent across the training grounds to rehydrate. Capt. Lenne Stolberg, Webb’s supervisor, arrived a minute later, stepping in with a clipboard in hand to debrief the assembled cadets.
As impressive as it was to track the improvements the class has made, Stolberg and his instructors were aware of every misstep in each training exercise. In this case, the primary search group missed the mannequin of an infant that had been placed near furniture set up in the smoke-filled basement of the building.
“OK, how did we miss him?” Stolberg asked, singling out the recruit who led the first group through the door. “Because we found the victim on the secondary [search], but we missed him on the primary, right?”
Stolberg nodded patiently as the recruit summed up the group’s approach, pointing out how the victim, an infant-sized dummy, was tucked away near an appliance in the corner of the room, while the recruit had personally felt along the row of appliances with his multi-purpose Halligan bar.
“I guess I didn’t reach back far enough, sir,” the recruit said, summing up.
“Well, there’s the problem with feeling with the tool; you’re not feeling anything,” the captain said, extending the lesson as he finished jotting down notes. “... You need to use the tool to remain in contact with the wall and you need to get your hand out there to search for victims.”
Echoing the lesson Webb outlined earlier, Stolberg offered words of encouragement for the group, telling them not to get too discouraged when confronted with a tough scenario.
“But that’s our job, right? Our job is tough and people are relying on us to be able to get in there and find them the first thing and get them out as quickly as possible,” Stolberg said, looking around at the recruits. “... Does that make sense?”
“Yes, sir!” came the response, shouted in unison.
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