Hands-on education in the nature of fire

Tag : Hands On Tools

In addition to quarterly recruit training, academy instructorstravel around the state offering more than 1,000 training,educational, and enrichment courses to emergency workers everyyear. The state began a three-year construction and renovationproject at the academy's 50-acre site in Stow last year that willprovide a new Department of Fire Services headquarters, vehiclemaintenance facility, and storage warehouse.
New recruits from every city and town are allowed to attend theacademy without charge, although Boston, Worcester, Springfield,and Quincy have their own facilities and generally do not sendcadets to Stow for training, said Jennifer Mieth, spokeswoman forthe Department of Fire Services. "But their firefighters and fireofficers take advantage of many of our other training programs,"she said.
The communities that do send trainees to Stow receive the benefitof a state's worth of experience. "Seventy-two individuals come inDay One. Some may know each other, but for the most part they arecoming into an environment they know little about, and when theyleave there they have created a very solid team," Coan said.
Perhaps the most specialized lessons taught to recruits concern theuse of protective gear. The subject is introduced in a lecture onthe "nature of fire," preparing trainees to understand, andhopefully predict, the behavior of fires. But classroom learning isonly a small fraction of the training. Most is hands-on, in thevery face of fire, created and controlled in facilities constructedto mimic real-world conditions.
"As teams of new firefighters, under very strict supervision oftrained instructors, they are introduced to live fire in asequential manner, from small one-room fires, extension fires,building fires, and so on," Coan said.
Cadets wait at a simulated firehouse until signaled by radio, whenthey gear up and respond to the training exercise as shaped byinstructors. Every cadet has a role for each fire, and their roleis changed for the next drill. For one, a cadet may take the nozzleand attack the fire directly. In subsequent drills, the traineemight ride the firetruck's ladder to the rooftop, or serve onrescue duty, scouring the scene for dummy victims.
"It's a playbook. Everyone has a particular job," Coan said,explaining that the cadets are trained to function as members of a"paramilitary" team.
Once a fire is extinguished - usually less than 20 minutes afterthe alarm is sounded - the cadets clean up, drink some water, andget ready to do it again. On June 9, in 95 degree weather, thecadets performed four such drills before lunch.
"Today is pretty much extreme conditions," said John Kennedy, afire lieutenant from Worcester and an academy instructor.
Although in the real world, firefighters "don't have the luxury tosay when we have a fire," Kennedy said between drills, "we do takeinto consideration that these are training burns. So we're going tobe taking a slow pace today because of the conditions. We'd ratherhave good training fires and have them learn something," he said,than beat on them "until they don't even want to be here."
"It does a number on you, but they take pretty good care of you,"Dempsey said. "In the real world it's a lot tougher, but theyprepare you as well as they can."