By Ryan Palencer
AVON —
In an area that allows its firefighters to get only limited experience battling flames in houses, trainees were able to gain some valuable experience earlier this week.
The Washington Township-Avon Fire Department were able to run test burns and training exercises at a vacant house in Avon.
“It is a great opportunity,” said Jim Adams, training division chief. “It’s getting harder and harder to get live burn situations. In Hendricks County, we don’t have a burn training tower. The only way that we get to burn and get hands-on for these new guys is coming out and finding a piece of property that the owner is willing to give to us.”
The house, near the intersection of U.S. 36 and County Road 900 East, is on the corner of where the new Lucas Oil Service Center is going in. Because of that, the property needed to be cleared.
Though they have been able to burn at the house for three days, the fire department has been training there since April. Crews have had an opportunity to do search and rescue exercises and basement evacuations.
“Guys have been training in this for the last three months,” Adams said. “We’ve gotten a lot of training out of this. That is a big plus for us because we just don’t have the facilities to do that.
“We have several new guys and now a days, we just don’t have the fires that we had years ago. Equipment is getting better. There are guidelines that we have to follow.”
In order to prepare the house, the fire department had to ensure that there was no furniture in the house. All that can be used in the burning process are skids and straw. Petroleum is also illegal in the burning.
“It’s not like a real fire, where you don’t know the layout of the house,” Adams said. “We train our guys so that if a firefighter pulled up to this house, it is a standard house that was built in the ‘50s and ‘60s. There are some things that we can look at. If the garage is on (the right) end, then we know that the living room is going to be directly in front and the kitchen behind it. It is going to be either a three- or four-bedroom house. Most of our firemen can tell you the layout when they pull up. They can tell you if it has a basement, that’s what we train them to look at.”
Donating a house for fire training purposes is more difficult than it may seem.
“It’s an expense to the property owner,” Adams said. “In order for us to do a live burn, there are state guidelines that we have to follow. Asbestos checks have to be done. It’s quite expensive. That’s all on the property owner.”
But those expenses can be offset by other savings, Adams said.
“(The property owner) get the opportunity to get rid of it,” he explained. “We can burn a piece of property down. If he were to have to tear this down, put it in dumpsters and move it, it may take 30 dumpsters. Where if we can burn it, it may only take five dumpsters. That’s a big savings for him and it’s a two-fold operation. He gets rid of it pretty inexpensive and we get the live, hands-on training.”
Next week the department will be training in another house, just east of this one.
“It’s a great opportunity,” Adams said. “We can go two or three years without one.”
ryan.palencer@flyergroup.com
