Joint Fire Training With A Surprise

Jackson County Fire District 3 joined Medford fire crews Wednesday for training. The fire training plan? Set a building on fire after they trapped a person inside.

Firefighters must prepare for anything. Training can make the difference between life and death. This training session threw an extra twist at the teams.

Firefighter Kelly Harrington told KOBI5 News, “We’ve got very smoked out conditions in a building that firefighters are very unfamiliar with and we try to take our training on the road as much as we can. What we play out here today is simulating an entrapment or a flashover or a sudden change of conditions where we have to send a crew in to save another crew.”

Smoke-filled buildings, especially buildings the fire crew are unfamiliar with, present dangerous conditions. It’s easy to get lost or trapped. Firefighters use thermal imaging cameras to locate victims, even in complete darkness.

Training in all conditions can make the difference between life and death for victims of the fire as well as the firefighters themselves.