Weekly Drill Night - Structural Firefighting Operations and Firefighter 1 Skills refresher

The officers of the Good Will Fire Company No.2 have always had an aggressive approach to training, whether we are training on advanced skills or refreshing ourselves on the most basic skills. The officers require the members in attendance to showcase their abilities while also learning new tricks of the trade and reinforcing skills that are required to be proficient on the fireground.

Since the number of actual "working" structural fires are down, our members continually train on the basic skills that are required of them while working at fires. Tonights drill was no different, the drill was lead by Lieutenant Chase Graves and Assistant Chief Paul Haring. All members were divided into two groups, one group acting as the Engine Company and the other group acting as the Truck Company. The Engine Company is tasked with establishing a constant water supply and stretching an attack line to the seat of the fire and extinguishing that fire. The Truck Company is tasked with searching the fire building, providing adequate ventilation, overhualing the fire area (finding hidden pockets of fire), placing portable ladders, utility control, and salvage.

The members of the company began getting the West Chester Fire Department Training Center's burn building ready at 4:30 PM. The scenario consisted of a fire on the second floor of a simulated house, a rescue dummy was placed inside the building to instill the importance of searching the fire building. Members arrived at the Fire Training Center at 7:00 PM and were briefed by Lieutenant Graves, Assistant Chief Haring acted as the Incident Commander/Stoker for the drill.

Each group rotated through the Engine Company and Truck Company Stations three times before the end of the night, valuable lessons were instilled in the younger members of the company and skills were also refreshed for the older members of the company.

While the Structural Firefighting Drill was going on, six members of the company reviewed skill stations in preperation for their upcoming Firefighter 1 test. This test is designed to challenge a firefighters knowledge of basic skills that are required to function within a fire department. These members have given up quite a bit of their time in preperation for this test, once they pass this test they will become nationally certified to the Firefighter 1 Level. This simply means that they have displayed the same standard of skills that are required by every firefighter across the country. The officers and members wish them luck and continue to help them in preperation for their upcoming test.

All of the members were cleaned up, the apparatus restored, and back in the firehouse by 9:45 PM.