Rapid City, S.D. (KELO) — The Rapid City Fire Department has been working on live fire training this week out at their burn town.
All three crews from six stations are taking part in the training this week.
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“It’s super important to get everybody through this just to get them comfortable in the fire environment. Extremely limited visibility to no visibility with high heat conditions. Just getting comfortable in your gear and the process of searching and working with your crews in that environment,” Fire Station 1 Captain Josh Lange said.
“With this burn tower, it’s not that we’re learning anything new, just adding color to our training already,” firefighter Zachary Auer said. “A month ago if somebody called the fire department for a structure fire at their house and they had victims trapped, you guys would expect us to be great at this. We already knew how to do this, we’re giving a little more complexity to the training that we already have.”
The snowfall and colder temperatures add another layer these firefighters have to deal with.
“Everyone of those affects how they fight the fire, the decisions they make when they go into a structure fire or a wildland fire for that matter,” Lange said. “It’s going to dictate how they approach it and so it’s good for them to have those factors as they’re training in a scenario like today.”
Calm communication and new technology help navigate the smoke-filled rooms.
“We have thermal imaging cameras that are a whole new can of worms that you can unbox,” Auer said. “Where we can actually cut through that smoke a little bit with seeing temperature differences so we can potentially see people, we can see building layouts, we can see when the next hallway is. Because when you get in there you can’t see anything with your naked eye.”
This week’s training focus is on search and rescue for people trapped inside the building.
The Rapid City Fire Department is hoping to do these trainings several times a year to work in the different elements the Black Hills brings with it.
