URBANA, Ill. (WCIA) — Urbana firefighters battled the heat to participate in extra training drills Friday afternoon.
The training, held in a parking garage on the University of Illinois campus, concentrated on house fires and the proper use of equipment. For example, bricks fell at the Florida Avenue Residence Hall in Urbana on Thursday. This incident led to the injury of two construction workers and involved the Urbana Fire Department’s rescue efforts.
According to Urbana Deputy Fire Chief Steve Doggett, as of Friday, the injured workers remain hospitalized, but their injuries are not life-threatening. The training on Friday had been planned three months before the wall collapse on Thursday.
“Currently, we’re working on refining our body mechanics for maneuvering a hose into a building while water is flowing,” stated Fire Lieutenant Josh Fitzsimmons.
Crews focused on fire suppression lessons from an out of state Chief. They worked on how to move a hose into a building while keeping the water pressure flowing.
“You have to understand where to put the water in order to effectively put out a fire and also understand flow pass and how putting water on an exhaust rather than an intake when you have that flow path, how that’s going to change the environment,” said Devin List, Probationary Firefighter. “And so just learning that kind of thing, it’s nothing I really thought about because it’s safe to assume that water is just going to put out the fire, and that’s not always going to be the case.”
Fitzsimmons said anything can occur at any time of the day when on the job.
“Always training for the worst possible scenario,” he said. “We’re always expecting the worst possible scenario and we’re hoping that it’s not that. However, we’re always mentally prepared and trained to the level that we need to meet for the public that we serve.”
List said these lessons apply to any fire training scenario. This includes commercial business settings, dumpster fires, apartment complexes and more.
“You know, we all think that we’re very capable of doing our job and we are,” List said. “But, you know, to take a step back and really think about what we’re doing.”
Deputy Chief Doggett said the goal is to always be ready for all scenarios. They plan to schedule another training within the next month.
“We always come back with another tidbit to make us more efficient, to make us more aware of what decisions we should be making based off of the situations we’re presented with,” Fitzsimmons said.
