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Where there’s smoke...there’s fire training

  • Published
  • By Howdy Stout
  • Tinker Public Affairs
TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. --  "We're right at the top of the risk level," explains Assistant Fire Chief Michael Tuley, as he watches thick gray smoke pour from the back of the apartment building. Teams of firefighters are poised to enter the building. "It doesn't get any more real for us."

Reality is the goal as Tinker's Fire Department turned a soon-to-be-demolished apartment building into a live-fire classroom last week. In a joint exercise, firefighting instructors from Tinker Fire Department, Eastern Oklahoma County Technical Center and surrounding fire departments used the seven apartments to test the skills and gain experience for their professional firefighters by setting -- and extinguishing -- real fires under real conditions.

"This is something that's very rare," Chief Tuley says. "This is as close to the real event as we can put ourselves."

Training firefighters with live burns in an actual building is increasingly rare and heavily regulated, with safety considerations paramount. Most training is done in specially-designed buildings using propane-fueled flames that produce little, if any, smoke. And many firefighters can go years without ever entering a burning building.

"It gives us a chance to see how fire behaves," says James Bradley, assistant chief of operations for Tinker's Fire Department. "You get to see the thermal layers as they develop. As that heat builds up, it forces you to go down low. In training, we're always having to tell the students to get down. Here, you don't have to tell anybody to get down."

Each firefighter of Tinker's 86-member fire department had the chance during the week-long training exercise to enter the seven-unit apartment building, rotating among the various team needed to fight a structure fire. There are normally five teams of four to five firefighters each, with each team tasked with fighting the fire, opening holes in the structure for ventilation or searching for victims inside the burning building.

"The fire attack team, they are the ones who go in with the hose and fight the fire," says Nathan Schooling, one of Tinker's firefighter instructors. "The back-up team, they'll follow them in. Their job is to go in and make sure the search team doesn't get trapped upstairs."

The search team will look for incapacitated victims. In this case, the victim is a "hose mannequin," a tied bundle of heavy, old fire hose. Armed with pike poles, another team stands by to ventilate the building by smashing windows or cutting holes in the roof, releasing built-up heat and smoke.

"It gets hot in there," Mr. Schooling says. "After about a minute, we're down on our knees because it's too hot to stand up. But if they open that window too soon, and it's a windy day, it'll feed the fire."

Safety is a primary concern with an exercise like this, Mr. Schooling said. Crews spent two weeks preparing the seven units of the two-story structure for the controlled burns. Carpets were removed and electrical outlets taken out and covered to prevent fire from reaching the interior of the wooden walls.

Bales of shaved wood are placed at different locations throughout each apartment and set alight by instructors. The flames are then fed by wooden pallets. The result is a hot fire producing thick, dense smoke. And where there is smoke, there's fire.

"One of the things we look at is reading the smoke," explains Chief Bradley. "Dark, thick smoke means the fire is still burning. Light-colored smoke means the fire is being cooled down."

"It's honestly the most true training you can have," says Tinker firefighter Robin Edmiaston, herself an experienced instructor from the Department of Defense's firefighting training school. "You feel the heat."

The reality of the training prompted much interest and participation from surrounding fire departments, where regulations often prevent such burn-to-learn exercises.

"It's really not feasible," says Andy Munsey, a training officer with the Oklahoma City Fire Department. "This is a real good opportunity for us, too."

Although Oklahoma City has a dedicated multi-storey training tower where the department can teach its firefighters, Mr. Munsey says it doesn't match the realism of a controlled burn in a real building.

"Here you have bedrooms, kitchens and dining rooms," he says. "It's more realistic."

Mr. Schooling agrees. Tinker Fire Department also has a training house, but only stage smoke is used during training.

"We can't build a fire so we don't get the heat or the heavy, toxic smoke," he explains. "It's safer, but not as real. This is as real as it gets."

The exertion of the firefighters is also real, with each fully-kitted firefighter wearing up to 50 pounds of equipment, including a 30-pound self-contained air pack and mask.

"They're rated for 30 minutes," Mr. Schooling says, "but when you're working, it's 15 or 20 minutes. If you're not in shape, 10 or 12. They get heavy after a couple of hours."

Each apartment in the seven-unit building provided up to a dozen burns, with instructors carefully controlling the fires for maximum training opportunities and safety.

"Our objective is not to burn it to the ground," says Tinker Fire Chief Terry Ford. "We're not in the parking lot construction business."

"It's a real good environment in there," says Chief Bradley. "I'm really impressed with how the instructors controlled the environment."

Although most firefighters are trained to similar standards, the exercise provided the Tinker Fire Department the chance to train under actual conditions with surrounding fire departments.

"It's a rare opportunity to train in this way with our neighbors," Chief Tuley says. "When we got this opportunity, we had joint training in mind. This training benefits all firefighters and strengthens our partnership with the community."

The joint training helps each department understand the tactics and training of their colleagues in the event they provide mutual aid to one another, such as last summer when the Tinker Fire Department provided assistance during the massive brush fires that swept through Midwest City.

"We do a lot of mutual aid," explains Mr. Schooling. "If they have a fire and they need help, they'll call us. And if we need help, they're just a phone call away."