As VunderBob said, volunteer departments have to live up to the same safety standards that paid departments do.
Practice fires are not just for rookies. All firefighters have to do wet stuff on the red stuff training. In fact, hubby is scheduled to do that very thing today.
In bigger cities most of the training/recert is done at a controlled location, like the North Bend Fire Academy for Western Washington. But, not every community has that luxury, making situations like yours necessary.
It’s possible the reason they are doing their measurements, etc at night is because the volunteers have day jobs and night is when they can schedule getting together to do the prep. I believe doing the prep is part of their commitment to safety and the environment.
I don’t know where the OP’er lives, but many counties and municipalities in the U.S. are self-insured. That doesn’t mean they don’t have a fund to pay claims, they do – usually up to 1 or 2 or 3 million dollars, on top of which there are “excess” insurance policies. But they may not have evidence in the form of a policy to prove that they are fully covered. If they’re self-insured, no policy exists, although the self-insurance provision should be in the local code. But I wouldn’t worry about insurance of the department if it’s a county or municipal department. If it is the Podunk Rural Volunteer Fire Department Cooperative, I would want to know what their insurance arrangements are.
It’s better then masking tape in the event of a fire.
But anyways, I asked my insurance agent about that. He suggested that you videotape your ‘stuff’ not so much to prove you have it, but so you remember it in the even of a claim. It’s alot easier to watch a tape and say “oh yea, that necklace/lamp/table etc… it gone/burnt” then it is to try to remember it off the top of your head.
I lack KCB615’s extensive experience but I have done 5-6 live fire excercises on abandoned structures. On every one of them there were literally have 3-4 additional hose teams above what the excercise called for. The vast majority of mistakes or runaway fire situations will be contained in short order. We only had one problem in the 30-40 scenarios we ran on those structures and it was our instructors decided to let one burn a little longer before turning us loose. Even then, it took the backup hose teams less than 30 seconds to drown it completely.
Extensive? Heh - I’m just a rookie at this stuff. I’ve got some old salty jakes for you in southern Rhode Island that have done hundreds. The state bought a huge section of South County to build a reservior that never took off, but had the local fire departments burn all of the houses down. Those guys taught me how to do live burns, and I’ve still got quite a bit to learn.
Absolutely. Like VunderBob, I’m a rookie volunteer firefighter, and went through months of training. We don’t just show up at a volunteer firehouse and say, “I wanna be a firefighter!” and they let us have at it.
We have to have the same training as the the paid crews - Firefighter 1, Hazmat Ops, Bloodborne Pathogens and First Responder (advanced first aid). You have to finish all that before you’re allowed to go out on the road as anything other than an observer. Firefighter 1 is no walk in the park - it’s not that hard if you study and pay attention, but it’s not anything you can slide through. But I digress.
A house burning is actually pretty cool. I’ve never participated in one, but I’ve been to a couple as an observer.
They would never do one in a neighborhood where the houses are close together - only where there’s a lot of space between them.
Safety is of the utmost concern, for the crews and the surrounding area.
They’re not going to just set the whole house on fire - they’ll most likely put excelsior or hay in certain rooms, one at a time, and set that on fire. Crews will go in and put out that one fire. It is all carefully controlled at all times. There will be safety officers observing each ‘burn.’ After each one, someone will make sure the fire is completely extinguished before they move on and do another room.
They’ll set up different situations in each room to give the firefighters different scenarios to figure out. There might be furniture in the way, ‘victims’ (dummies) to find, they might get in a room and the safety officer will shut the door and say the door has been blocked by debris and tell them to find another way out - things like that.
More than likely, they’ll be there all day. It’s actually very interesting to watch.
Sure, but when I hear about something going on down the road, my first thought isn’t “Better inventory the furnishings in my house.” The point seems to be to have record of them in the event of conflagration; that seems extremely unlikely to happen. But it’s not a bad idea anyway.
hey, this is a fascinating thread, 'cause it never occured to me that fire departments intentionally burn down buildings. I’ve only seen 'em extinguishing fires, not starting them. Gee, I’m naive.
But there’s one detail here that seems weird: why is all the activity in the vacant house happening at night? Surely it would be easier during daylight. I can see why the actual burn would be at night, for realistic training. But do the prep, and especially the safety
checks, wouldn’t it be better if you could actually see the surroundings, and not just a little bit of it in a narrow flashlight beam?
The actual burn would more than likely be during the day - they usually last several hours.
When we do them, they usually get started at 8:00 or so, and go till late afternoon.
I’ve never heard of a house burning at night, but companies can go to the fire academy and do burns there at night, in the ‘burn building.’
As picunurse said, the reason prep work is going on at night is because volunteers have real jobs during the day, and have to do the preparation at night. As I said before, safety for everyone involved is the number one concern. Gas and electric will be shut off. Anything unsafe will be removed from the house, and any intentional ‘hazards’ will be brought from the fire academy.
Thanks again for all the advice, especially the links, KCB615 and Pic Nurse. I am feeling better about everything. I wasn’t able to talk to the person in charge today, but should get him tomorrow. I feel more confident calling and asking questions now that I know more of what usually goes on.
And now that we are not quite so worried, my husband loved Oakminster’s idea of having a party and inviting folks over. I imagine the whole neighborhood will want to watch the excitement so we will be prepared with hot coffee, hot chocolate, doughnuts, etc. Maybe we can even have marshmellows and weiners to roast. We are thinking it now it probably won’t be at night, we had just thought that because that is when they have been doing the prep work. So maybe we will sort of host a House Warming, hee hee, like **seven ** suggested for the new neighbors. They can pop over from time to time to warm up from standing in the cold for hours and meet some of the nice folks who will be their new neighbors. And we will let the firefighters know they are welcome to come over as well, sounds like a long day for them. Thanks for the idea VunderBob.
I will have to start another thread in Café Society for some ideas on other songs to make an appropriate mix for the occasion. I can think of a few already, “We didn’t start the fire….” Smoke on the Water,” “When Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.” I might even break down and add Disco Inferno and “Hot, Hot, Hot.” Then I can give the CD to the new owners as a memento of the occasion. ( Unless of course our house does burn down, then I might have to rethink that idea.) :eek:
So thanks to the SDMB I not only will be sleeping better, but now have a party to plan! Great ideas! Thanks again.
We are thinking it now it probably won’t be at night, we had just thought that because that is when they have been doing the prep work. So maybe we will sort of host a House Warming, hee hee, like **seven ** suggested for the new neighbors. They can pop over from time to time to warm up from standing in the cold for hours and meet some of the nice folks who will be their new neighbors. And we will let the firefighters know they are welcome to come over as well, sounds like a long day for them. Thanks for the idea VunderBob.