Firefighters Train for Smoke Rescue

By: Brandon Green

Firefighters representing four local departments participated in a search and rescue training exercise Sunday in South Zanesville.

The training started at 9:00 a.m. and ran through about 4:00 p.m., led by two instructors from the state fire academy in Reynoldsburg. One of the instructors is a retired firefighter from Violet Township, while the other is a fire chief from Bedford Heights near Cleveland.

“They’ve come in today to go over the search and rescue trailer that the fire academy has; it’s an outreach program,” said South Zanesville’s Fire Chief, Norm Mansfield. “We’ve got guys from South Zanesville, Wayne township, Harrison Township and Washington Township here today going through the trailer. Part of it is setup as you might find in a normal home, and part of it is setup like a commercial structure inside, to help them with their search and rescue techniques.

To maintain their fire certifications, firefighters are required to do 18 hours of training each year, and although they have previously used other fire academy trailers, Mansfield said this is the first time they’ve trained with this particular facility.

“Inside the trailer here there’s no lights or anything, the guys are going a lot by feel, there’s some ambient light through windows, stuff like that’s on the inside of the trailer, but most of the work we do when we’re inside of a structure in a smokey condition is low visibility, so we have to know what we’re feeling more than what we’re seeing,” Mansfield said.

Mansfield expressed his great appreciation for the state fire academy for making this training available to all the attendees at no cost. This type of training exercise would typically cost a single fire department $500 to participate; however, the academy waives all fees when a minimum number of participants are organized and able to attend the event.