FIREFIGHTERS TRAIN IN REAL-LIFE SETTING

It's not something you are going to see everyday.

On Monday, firefighters set fire to an abandoned house on Laura Street for the sole purpose of putting it out -- several times. The incendiary nature of the fire was part of a training exercise that the department training officer, Mark Hasheider, has been planning for several weeks.

Firefighters who fought the blazes Monday had climbed through the house and ran hose lines up to and through it several times prior to the actual burning of the building.

"This kind of exercise is as much for the benefit of the younger guys as it is anyone else," said Capt. Don Smith, one of the firefighters taking part in Monday's drills. "It gives them hands-on training on the equipment and some first-hand experience in knocking down and extinguishing fires.

"Besides, the more they know about how things work at a fire scene, the less likely they are to get hurt during the real thing," he said.

The house, which had been somewhat modified to meet National Fire Protection Association standards for a training fire, was given to the firefighters by the city. It lies in an area that will be a park when the Cape LaCroix-Walker Branch flood control project is completed.

"We have to burn it to the ground," said Hasheider, who spent the better part of the day at the house. "The city was going to come through and tear them down anyway."

The exercise got under way at about 9:30 a.m., after a final briefing by Hasheider and Fire Chief Robert L. Ridgeway.

"We want to make everything as realistic as possible," said Hasheider, knowing the firefighters were familiar with the building. "We're going to follow standard operating procedures, size up the scene when you arrive -- everything has to be done the same as it would under normal conditions."

As the firefighters who would be actually battling the blaze returned to their trucks parked nearby on Terry Lane, Hasheider, Ridgeway and a few firefighters set fire to the bails of straw and wooden pallets inside the house.

After the fire started inside the house, the three units which would be responding in the exercise were called in. For safety purposes, or in case of another emergency, three more trucks stood by as the responding units worked the scene.

The three trucks pulled in front of the building in a quick succession.

"The time of arrival will be roughly the equivalent of what it would be in a real situation this far from the stations," said Ridgeway.

As firefighters from the first engine on the scene donned their gear and entered the smoke-filled building, firefighters from the last truck to arrive hooked a 5-inch hose on to a fire hydrant about a block and a half away, running the hose the length of the road, back to one of the pumpers.

From the outside, onlookers could see the black billowy smoke turn white -- a sign that the fire was being extinguished from within.

Two firefighters dragged a "victim" from the house -- a mannequin that had been placed in the bathroom just behind the door.

When the fire was just about out, the firefighters regrouped outside for a mini-debriefing.

"We don't want to put it out all the way or get the house too wet," said firefighter Bill Crump. "It won't burn if we get too much water inside."

As the firefighters talked about how things had gone inside, what they had done right, and what had gone wrong, the fire got itself going again. Firefighters then replaced the hose on the trucks -- with the exception of the 5-inch line -- and went back to their starting positions.

The second time firefighters "responded" to the scene, flames were shooting from the roof and had engulfed the front portion of the house.

A "victim" lay just inside a makeshift second-story window the firefighters had added for training purposes. So as firefighters attacked the fire from the front and rear, two men from the department's ladder company climbed a ladder and rescued the mannequin.

After most of the flames had been extinguished, the firefighters again regrouped, readying themselves for the final assault on the building. This time there would be no one going inside.

By the time Hasheider called the trucks to the scene for the last time, towering flames shot from a gaping hole in the roof, through an attic space on the north side of the building, and engulfed the entire northern end of the house.

This time firefighters used a high-pressure water nozzle mounted on one of the trucks to attack the fire from the street. The flames were reluctantly beaten down as an emergency crew on the north side kept it from escaping the house and spreading to the surrounding leaves.

At that point, it was time to let nature take it's course with what remained of the building.

Although it took only minutes for firefighters to pull the hoses from the trucks, it took all of them nearly an hour to replace them.

After the house had been reduced to a pile of burning embers, a reserve engine stayed behind as the crews headed back to their stations to refuel, restock and wash the trucks -- a chore which would literally take them hours to finish.

"Look at it this way," Capt. Robert Kembel said. "After we get done with this, we have 96 hours off."