Safety Officer Driving Drill – Company’s 1, 2 and 3 - November 15, 2015

Health and Safety Officer, Captain Bob Telless, designed another great driving drill taking place over two weekend days.  The drill consisted of five stations where firefighters each got a chance to drive a variety of CFD apparatus through DOT designed driving courses.  The first station consisted of a serpentine style course where Firefighters used Rescue 2/Hovercraft navigating a star shaped course, outlined with cones topped with golf balls.  Nock a golf ball off and you loss!  Only 4 Firefighters made it through this course without having to back up.  Next up was the “Diminishing roadway and backup” course.  Firefighters used Car 2 and Marine 1 to back through a winding course outlined in cones and golf balls. This simulated backing Marine 1 into boat launch points and into narrow water ways.   Third was a scenario put on by Deputy Germaine where firefighters learned proper apparatus positing at Fire Incidents.  The Deputy showed pictures of past incidents and explained the methodology in how to properly position Fire apparatus on the same side of the road, allowing other emergency vehicle to pass though as needed.  The fourth station was a Forestry 25 obstacle course through the woods where firefighters had to find a manikin, correctly package the manikin on a stokes basket and successfully return to the start point on Forestry 25.  The final event resembled a narrowly design road way where firefighters used Engine 2 and Tanker 1 to simulate responding to a structure fire down a very narrow roadway.  Crews had to lay a 4″ supply line about 100′, use the Tanker to tie in our Carver connection and charge Engine 2’s Blitz Fire nozzle to knock down a barrel target.   All events of the day had a judge and were timed with penalties assigned.  Overall, firefighters seemed to enjoy the healthily competition while testing their driving skills.  Drills like this make us all better firefighters and help keep us SAFE!  (Photo’s by Retired Chief Bill Harriman and Chief Craig Weston)