For Training: Inferno in a box
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
READING — Volunteer firefighters crouched in full gear, with hoses in hand, waiting for an opportunity to crawl inside a trailer and down the hall to a bedroom fire.
“We have fire,” Dennis Bollin said into a hand-held radio. Flames flared behind a double-paned window that separated him and a control panel from the burning “bed.”
The bed was a prop that, fueled by propane, burned on cue. Bollin stood ready to douse the fire if necessary, and another volunteer firefighter stood at the opposite end of the trailer to signal Bollin with the push of a button. But the fire was real. At one point, it heated the area to more than 1,500 degrees.
The exercises were done within the confines of a full-sized semi-tractor trailer unit operated by Bollin through the Kansas University Fire Institute. The Institute has several trailers that simulate different scenarios for fires and fire rescues.
The fires, which ran from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, were part of a training exercise set up by Reading Fire Benefit District No. 1 for volunteer firefighters across the county. Arrangements for the exercises and bringing in participants were made by Assistant Fire Chief Mark Shoemaker.
Safety and skills were foremost in their minds.
“Being in a rural department, you really don’t get the everyday structure fire,” said Reading Chief Scott Wilkerson. Like all volunteer departments in the county, members are called to fight their own fires and, periodically, for mutual aid by other volunteer departments and by the Emporia-Lyon County Fire Department.
It is both good news and bad news that those call-outs do not come often enough to give the firefighters the practice they need, for their own safety and that of the community.
Emporia firefighter, training officer and KU field instructor Bill Harmon led the exercises on Saturday.
“It gives them a chance to get in and get some practice before they have to fight a live fire,” Harmon said. “Having the availability of material like this really is priceless. When they get in there and start to put the fire out, they can feel the heat. ... That’s really the best place to train on something like that, before you get into a real fire.”
Saturday’s morning exercises included the bed fire and, on cue from Harmon, a “rollover,” in which flames licked their way across the ceiling.
The firefighters took turns practicing crawling into the trailer, down a long hall, and knocking down the fire. They practiced backing out on their hands and knees, not letting their eyes stray from the fire site, in case it should flare up again. They stayed low to take advantage of the best environment offered in the trailer, since both heat and smoke rise. The temperature at the top and the bottom of the trailer often varied several hundred degrees.
“Hopefully, they’ll go home with a little more confidence in what their capabilities are,” Harmon said.
Outside the trailer, a rapid intervention team of volunteers stood ready to go in if the others unexpectedly needed assistance.
The computer-operated trailers have an assortment of safety features, including the two-person signals on each end of the trailer. Non-toxic artificial smoke is pumped through the trailers to give trainees the full simulation of a fire scene.
The Institute’s other trailers train firefighters in search and rescue, maneuvering in stairways, structure collapses, technical rescues and specialized skills such as forcing and entry and ventilating a roof.
Trailers are brought in at no charge as they are available.
“Your insurance money pays 2 percent to the state fire marshal and out of the fund, KU gets a grant from it each year to pay for fire training,” Bollin said.
So far, he said, the computer-operated training trailers have been “very trustworthy.”
The propane used in the bed-fire scenario can be controlled to produce the type and intensity of fire needed.
“Propane will flash at minus 20,” Bollin said, “but it won’t ignite and burn until it’s 850 degrees.”
Volunteers learn which spray patterns from their hoses are most effective for the types of fires they are fighting.
“We’re trying to teach them, ‘See fire before you spray water,’” Bollin said.
His control panel held LED read-outs that raced up and down, measuring temperatures on the “bed,” the ceiling, the floor and the surroundings.
When areas became too hot, sensors kicked in and shut down the fires, and the volunteers quickly cooled the areas with a barrage of water. At one point in the exercise, the bed prop temperature spiked to over 1,500 degrees. Temperatures in other parts of the trailer ranged from 89 up to over 300 degrees, when the sensors took over and shut down the fire.
The computer-controlled trailer is a substantial improvement over an old trailer that burned wood shavings. The fire then needed to be rebuilt after every exercise. Side-effects of those fires sometimes were unbearable.
“It was so hot in there it was melting helmets,” Bollin said. “The room itself was 1,100 degrees. ... Bunker gear is designed to keep you safe a period of time up to 600 degrees.”
After the fires, the volunteers stood inside and sprayed water out the trailer windows — hydraulic ventilation — to air out the smoke when it became too dense.
“They’re actually using the hose to pull the smoke out of the trailer,” said Bollin, who is a retired captain from Johnson County Fire District No. 1. In the past, firefighters used over-sized exhaust fans for smoke removal.
“You can take a nozzle with a fog pattern, cover 75 to 85 percent of the window and it will suck the smoke right out of the house,” Bollin said.
By noon, the sweat-soaked volunteers were ready to shrug off their heavy equipment and sauna-like protective gear and take a break before the afternoon exercises began.
In addition to the experience gained, the practice had provided an opportunity for Reading residents to watch their own firefighters and others in action.
“It gets the community involved,” Wilkerson said. “Kids are watching. That’s going to help our community more in a few years, whether it’s just looking, or talking to them. That’s going to be a bonus down the road — future firefighters.”
The volunteers are a vital link in protecting people and property in the community.
“We’re there. Come rain, shine, or whatever, we’re all going to show up,” Wilkerson said.
Other volunteer firefighters who participated in the training, in addition to those already mentioned, were Jason Gibson of Miller, Sam Buckbee and Melanie Waters of North Lyon County, Matthew Kelley of Emporia, Paul Lee of Americus and Kevin Sorensen, Michelle Herzog and Craig Coucher of Reading.