St Patrick’s Hall Used For Firefighting Training Project

By Andrew Gorosko

Several dozen local volunteer firefighters received valuable training on Saturday, May 31, as fires were lit inside a building scheduled for demolition, providing them with a realistic simulation of working inside a burning structure.

Firefighters from Newtown Hook & Ladder, Sandy Hook, Botsford, Hawleyville, and Dodgingtown converged at the St Rose Church campus on Church Hill Road where they lit fires inside St Patrick’s Hall. The hall, which has served as the church’s social center for decades, will be demolished and replaced with new church facilities.

But before the demolition, the church provided the fire companies with multiple opportunities to use the old hall for firefighting training.

Initially it was thought that the structure would be burned to the ground for a fire training exercise, but it was later decided that only selective burning exercises would be permitted within the structure.

The church grounds are within Hook & Ladder’s fire district.

Hook & Ladder Fire Chief Dave Ober said about 45 firefighters took part in the May 31 exercise. That session was one of five training sessions that had been held at the hall in recent days, providing firefighters with about 20 hours overall of training time.

“This type of training is indispensable,” providing firefighters with the opportunity to extinguish set fires within the confines of a wooden building, he said. The interior fires are fueled by hay and wooden shipping pallets. A smoke generator also is used to create the obscuring effects of smoke.

The training sessions provided personnel with a chance to practice forcible entries, searches for victims, searches for fires, the handling of charged fire hoses, and fire extinguishment.

“It helps build confidence…within a controlled environment,” Chief Ober said.

The fires were set inside an approximately 250-square-foot room within the church hall into which firefighters hauled charged fire hoses to put out the fires. “It is very realistic,” he said.

Only volunteers with a minimum of Level 1 Firefighter certification were allowed to enter the ignited environment, he said.

“I’ve had very good feedback from the guys,” Chief Ober said of firefighters’ response to the training project, which provided them with “good practical training.”

The training sessions at the church hall were so realistic that occasionally passersby would stop at the site to inquire whether the building was burning down.