When instructor Al Mullenbach said they had "three hours to burn," he meant it literally.

Saturday, April 08, 2000

When instructor Al Mullenbach said they had "three hours to burn," he meant it literally.

Mullenbach was one of many instructors training a total of about 400 firefighters from 100 different departments around the state at this weekend’s Austin State Fire School at Riverland Community College.

While Mullenbach worked with students on Liquid Petroleum (propane) fires on the east side of the building, other trainers worked with students inside the classrooms and outside the building at different simulation stations.

Outside was where the action was.

Training stations surrounded three sides of Riverland’s West Building, with students dressed in full firefighter regalia. Within sight of the LP training, another group worked with airbags and pieces of wood to free a trapped "farmer" from where he was pinned under a tractor; the same group would later work to free a farmer from the inside of a huge combine.

Several others worked on confined space extrication, squeezing themselves into a simulation pod to practice getting in and out of small spaces. It wasn’t an easy task wearing the heavy gear of a firefighter and more than one had to crawl back out and start again.

The Bloomington bomb squad – the only bomb squad in the state – was also there to show firefighters what to watch out for.

On the far side of the building, Brian Staska, Riverland Fire and Safety Training Coordinator, had arranged an "area of terror," for the firefighters who would later practice auto extrication and fighting an automobile fire. There were 14 cars in total, on their sides, tops or piggy-backed and crumpled, ready to be cut up the next day.

"This is why firefighters come to these schools," southern district coordinator for the Fire and EMS Safety Center Warren Jorgenson said, after a drive around the building. "We have some of the best props in the state."

"This training is a little more intense than these firefighters would probably get if they held it in their own department," Staska said. "We offer eight and 12-hour classes in certain areas where they would probably only get two or three hours if they did the training at their own station."

Today firefighters will grapple down the side of the eight-story Twin Towers in yet another exercise. The arson group will find out if their theories about the fires set Friday night in the "arson house" were correct.

Everyone, who hasn’t already, will get their certificates and head back home, ready and armed with a little more knowledge to help keep them and the citizens of their community safe.

Propane safety one focus

Training saves lives.

Two weeks ago, the biggest worry for firefighters battling a blaze at Carney’s Auto north of Austin was the Liquid Petroleum (propane) tank outside the wall of the burning building.

If it exploded, the scale of the disaster could have been much worse. Fortunately, it didn’t.

Firefighters kept the tank cool and it emerged from the fire wet, but otherwise all in one piece.

So did the firefighters. Obviously, they knew what they were doing.

After this weekend, at least 14 more firefighters will know better how to deal with an LP fire, thanks to the Austin Fire School.

"This type of fire kills a lot of firefighters every year," Brian Staska, Riverland Fire and Safety Training Coordinator, said, from a vantage point next to the training session on LP fires. "Because it’s a compressed gas, if it’s not kept cool, the gas will expand and put pressure on the tank. If the tank explodes, everyone in the area is enveloped in a huge fireball. Plus, the metal will fragment and you don’t know where it will go.

"We put a lot into the training for this."

The LP fire group did two different drills with the propane fires: one with a gas "tree" and another with a propane tank.

Against the tree, four hoses were used: two in the center to attack the fire and two on the outside for protection. In the attack, the two groups on the attack hoses walked forward slowly, creating a wall of water between them and the fire. A situation commander walked between them, holding the inside man of each, keeping the two group’s synchronized. Once they were close enough, it was the job of the center man to reach through the wall of water and turn off the gas valve at the base of the tree.

They walked through the exercise again and again.

"With rescue, people always think you have to hurry," Staska said. "You actually have to take your time, because you don’t want to get hurt. If we get hurt ourselves then there are more victims and you’re not helping anyone."