Burn to learn: Firefighters from Wood County area get hoses-on training at donated house
WISCONSIN RAPIDS – Local residents might have noticed smoke and flames coming from a two-story home on Neitzel Road, near State 73, on Monday evening.
Brad and Dave Tork, owners of Fanning Cranberry, donated the house to Wood County-area fire departments to give firefighters the opportunity to practice skills needed to keep themselves and their communities safe. In May, fire departments used the house to practice techniques for rescuing fallen firefighters.
Teri and Greg Gerdes were on hand to watch the firefighters work. Greg Gerdes is the marsh manager and was glad to see the house be used for the training.
On Monday, about 35 firefighters from eight departments — Vesper, Pittsville, Arpin, Hewitt, Rudolph, Sherry, City Point and Plover — practiced their firefighting skills as trainers ignited fires in different sections of the old home. Vesper Fire Department Capt. Paul Dederich organized and oversaw the training.
"This training is mostly to give new firefighters a chance to experience what it's like to be in a live fire situation," Dederich said.
The size of the house allowed organizers to run eight separate scenarios, Pittsville Fire Chief Jerry Minor said. During each one, teams of firefighters took turns putting out the blaze.
As the training got underway at about 7 p.m. Monday, smoke could be seen coming out of a second-story window. Accompanying the smoke was a large group of bats fleeing from the vacant home filling with the smoke.
Shortly after the first group of firefighters entered the house, heavy smoke came from a second-floor window closely followed by a stream of water. The firefighters were using water to vent the house, Minor said.
Firefighter Willow Eastling has been a member of the Vesper Fire Department about a year. She took part in Monday's training.
"It was definitely a realistic experience that prepares you for the real thing," Eastling said.
Officers are there with the new firefighters, guiding them and giving them feedback on what they're doing, Eastling said. There also was a lot of support outside the house. Eastling said it gave her confidence to have the feedback and knowing she was taking the correct steps in fighting the fire.
Another benefit of the training was getting to work with firefighters from many departments, Eastling said. It's common for multiple fire departments to respond to a fire and it will be nice to know firefighters she'll see and work with at different fires, she said.
The firefighters also went to a recovery station set up outside the home. At the station, emergency medical technicians checked each firefighter's blood pressure, pulse and breathing to make sure they were all right, Minor said. The station also had water and food to keep the firefighters hydrated.
The recovery station is something that has been around a long time, but departments in Wood County are trying to use more, Minor said. It's important to make sure firefighters are doing well when at the scene of a fire for an extended time.
Dederich said he was pleased with how Monday's training went. A lot of the men and women recently out of firefighting training at Mid-State Technical College or still taking courses there said the additional experience Monday night was valuable in preparing them for a real fire, Dederich said.
The chance to use a real house for training is getting rarer, Dederich said. He was glad so many firefighters took advantage of the unique opportunity.
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Contact Karen Madden at 715-345-2245 or kmadden@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @KMadden715, Instagram at @kmadden715 or Facebook at facebook.com/karen.madden.33.
This article originally appeared on Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune: Wood County-area firefighters get hoses-on training at donated house
