| Over the weekend members traveled to the West Chester Fire Training Center for a class. Martins Corner Fire Company of West Caln Township graciously offered Engine Company Operations by Traditions Training LLC. to our members. Traditions Training is a High Impact, Experience Based, Hands on approach to training for the fire service. Traditions has instructors from busy respected Fire Departments such as the FDNY, Washington DC, and Pittsburgh Bureau of Fire. The instructors deliver very driven and experience based classes from there combined experiences and years on the job.
Company's that participated this weekend were taught many various skills that could be used in our area companies.
The instructors focused on fire attack techniques, skills of a strong "backup man", "combat ready firefighting", successfully deploying a 400 ft hand line, using "standpipe racks" to fight fires off of standpipes or using them to extend lines, we also went over "pushing in" on a fire if we are greeted with fire at the door of a building. There were many skills taught to the students over the weekend. Station 28 had a total of ten members participating with the other three company's in the class. The weekend was kicked off with a 4 hour classroom section, after the classroom the students were served lunch courtesy of the Martins Corner Fire Company and spent the rest of Saturday going over practical exercises with the instructors that would be used Sunday. Instructors took all the classroom review and a few tricks they've learned over the years and taught the willing students.
On Sunday the day started off with a quick review and then jumped right into practical evolutions. On Sunday students were masking up within 30 seconds at the door and deploying a 400 ft attack line within 90 seconds. Students were also learning to "push in" with a 200' 2 1/2" attack line without shutting down. All the knowledge conveyed by the instructors was put to the test on Sunday with the instructors encouraging the students to emphasize on teamwork and pushing all the students to perform more efficiently. All the students in the class did a great job working together and making the best of the knowledge and skills passed on to us by the instructors.
The weekend's big finale was a "box alarm" scenario for a single family structure fire. During the box alarm drill company's excelled to work together and secured two water sources and deploy four 1 3/4" attack lines (two on each floor) into the structure, with the lines being stretched distances of 150 ft to 400 ft.
Once again thanks to Martins Corner for the invitation, and thank you to Traditions Training for yet another GREAT!!! class. Everyone from 31 came away from the class with many new and great ideas that we can implement into our company to better serve the residents and businesses of our community.
Firefighters attending were Captain Conroy, Firefighter Loesch and Firefighter Reed. |
