The West Grove Fire Company held a live fire burn training on Saturday March 26th at the Chester County Emergency Services Training Center in Coatesville PA. This was the second time West Grove has used the new facility since it went operational for County Fire Companies to use last fall. We had previously used the training tower in November for live fire Propane fed fire hi-rise training. This past Saturday the company assembled about 50 of its members, 2 engines, a rescue, the ladder truck and an ambulance for the rehab station along with various squads and command vehicles and went to Coatesville for a day of live fire training. Understand this was a Holiday weekend and appreciate that the members took time away from families during a holiday to train. A benefit to this was that made it easier to get the facility and instructors as there were no County activities planned. In addition to the WGFC we were joined by our brothers from Mill Creek Delaware. Over the last couple of years we have made trips to the Delaware State Fire School with Mill Creek to train and we were happy to return the favor this time around inviting Mill Creek to burn with us.

We ran two scenarios multiple times. A basement fire with extension (the second floor extension is pictured on the cover of this story) to the second floor was run for 5 evolution's allowing every team to rotate in as a truck company (live fire), an engine company (live fire), a RIT company, mandatory rehab and then to help load the engine for their engine company scenario. This simulated what we call our bread and butter calls stretching a line in the front door to the fire. We choose a basement fire as these are generally the most punishing as you need to descend the stairs through the escaping heat to get to the fire.

The second scenario was a two room fire on the lower level that required use of the leader lines which were recently placed into service by West Grove. We ran this scenario two times letting one group perform the engine company duties and another perform truck company duties on each of the two evolution's.

A leader line allows the fire company to stretch a large diameter line in this case a 3 inch line to a point near or in a structure that is a greater distance than our pre-connected 200 or 300 foot 1 ¾ lines will reach. Once the leader line is deployed we then connect a smaller 1 ¾ line to the leader line and advance that to the seat of the fire. It allows for greater flexibility in our operations and the training the company had in house last fall as well as in the drill tower at the county made this a repeat exercise that went very well. We can stretch a leader line and end up with a 500 – 600 foot line that is still manageable and safe inside the building. It also provides the option to hook a second line up for backup which is a normal operation also the same distance from the engine.

In all scenarios we had an engine company and a truck company in operation. An engine company is responsible for securing a water supply and advancing the hose to the fire. A truck company is responsible for laddering the building, performing an outside size up, forcing entry via a door prop if required (it was on all scenarios) and doing a primary search for victims.

Overall the company did an outstanding job of performing their assigned roles and we are well prepared for whatever may happen at the next alarm. This pulled together the training from last year with various hose line deployments and truck practice into a situation with live fire and the members hit a home run. An example of this “putting it all together was seen at a fire last week in the Boro of West Grove. We were able to quickly deploy a line and keep a fire at a residence to the room of origin. There is a separate story on the website if you are interested in reading more.

Overall it was a great day, the scenarios went as planned and everyone got at least 3 trips inside the building operating as a truck or engine crew. We had 21 members participate inside in live fire and at least that many outside in support. We had a streamlined Rehab setup that turned both the members and county instructors out quickly and ready to go back to work. We had members filling SCBA all day which led to more time putting out fires. We had our junior firefighters there helping place engines back in service. Just like a real fire everyone was needed to make sure the day went smoothly. No one was hurt and we got 7 fires in by 12:30 which is very good.

Thank you to all that participated and to Jim Weber for the outstanding photographs. We would also like to thank the Lower Chichester Fire Company for covering our local while we conducted the training.