April 2, 2004

WRT firefighters teaching others from around U.S.

       Nearly 14,000 firefighters from around the country are coming to Indianapolis this month for a national training conference.  Some of them will get hands-on training when the White River Township Fire Department burns down an old home on Bluff Road.  Firefighters attending the annual Fire Department Instructors Conference at the Indiana Convention Center and RCA Dome the week of April 26 will have a chance to sign up for a class taught by White River Township firefighters.  The conference is conducted each year in Indianapolis. Several Johnson County firefighters attend classes, and some help teach them.  This year, the White River Township department will burn down portions of the donated house for a week to simulate burning rooms and teach firefighters how to search a burning structure for trapped victims and hidden fires in ceilings and walls.  The class will also teach fire departments how to perform safe and effective live burns.  Joel Thacker, training chief for the department, said more hands-on classes, such as the ones that use real fires, are usually popular at the conference.  Other Johnson County fire departments will provide water and equipment to help with the two-day class.  Firefighters will train on a 3,354-square-foot home at 775 N. Bluff Road owned by Mount Pleasant Christian Church.  Church officials recently donated the house to the fire department.  They said the home is too expensive to maintain and would need to be destroyed when the church decides what it is going to build on the 50 acres surrounding the house.  Developers and other land owners that need to destroy buildings in order to build new ones sometimes approach the fire department about donating property.  The fire department, after complying with state and federal guidelines such as removing siding and roofing, sets the building on fire to train firefighters.  Thacker said White River Township has received an average of two houses a year for the past few years from developers.  “It’s such good hands-on training,” he said.  The conference is sponsored by Fire Engineering magazine.  See related story by clicking HERE.

(click on thumbnail to enlarge photo)

  

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