Last Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, nearly two dozen fire fighters from San Bernardino County, the Combat Center, CalFire, and Morongo Valley gathered behind the old Walmart building in Yucca Valley to practice how to rescue a fire fighter who’s fallen through a roof. Managing editor Tami Roleff was at the exercise, and files this report…
It’s the best way—but most dangerous way—to fight a structure fire: sending fire fighters up to the roof to cut holes in it to let the smoke and heat out of the building. “It’s pretty dangerous to do ventilation just because you go to the roof of a structure and there’s fire burning below you, and every second that fire’s burning is weakening that roof.” Battalion Chief Tom Marshall explained why it’s necessary, despite the danger. “But it’s important for us to get up there and get that hole to get the smoke and the heat out so that we can see.” In last week’s exercise, some fire fighters went inside the building with water-filled hoses to fight an imaginary fire, while others pulled out a ladder and crawled to the roof with their axes and chain saws. Then the word went out that a fire fighter—in this training scenario, it was Captain Jay Dimoff—had fallen through the roof and needed to be rescued. Fire fighters armed with flashlights went searching for the missing fire fighter, who had “broken” his leg in the “fall,” and when they found him, dragged him out to safety. Marshall said it was important for the fire fighters to practice this scenario, since having a fire fighter fall through a roof is not uncommon when fighting structure fires. “It happens every year. Fire fighters fall through roofs every year.”
FIREFIGHTERS HOLD RESCUE DRILL LAST WEEK
