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Canfield firefighters use homes yet to be demolished for training
Photo
Canfield firefighter Tim Frease, above, carries a baby doll from a home filled with fake smoke during a training exercise Monday in Canfield. Firefighters practiced search and rescue.
By ROBERT CONNELLY
CANFIELD
As the door was opened, fake smoke poured over two firefighters who crawled in to find an infant on the second floor.
The infant was a toy baby and the home was one of two houses neighboring the Canfield public library. All three buildings are set to be demolished.
“You just got to practice your skills,” Cardinal Joint Fire District Chief Don Hutchison said. “We don’t have enough fires, so we have to do this.”
He added that the department has been able to occasionally do this with homes that are to be demolished in Canfield. The fire district covers both the city and township. The department performed three drills Monday night.
The first one was in the yellow building to the left of the library. A harmless, odorless manufactured smoke used for training purposes filled the home and fire officials had to work in two-man teams to crawl underneath the smoke while taking a hose with them to find an infant on the second floor.
The second was a two-man crew followed by two more people who scaled a ladder onto the roof of the white house to the right of the library. There, they hooked a smaller ladder onto the peak of the roof so they could cut through the roof with a chainsaw to practice ventilation.
The final drill was when fire crews then went into that white home on the second floor, where crews had cut a whole in the floor, to simulate rescuing a firefighter who had fallen through the floor. They used a technique called rapid intervention team.
Firefighter Rob Tieche explained that the drill was designed after a firefighter in Columbus “fell through a floor in a commercial building and fell to the basement, and I think they spent an hour trying to get him out.”
Hutchison said firefighters would not be getting graded on the test, but that fire officials wanted them to do it as fast as they could. “It’s just a matter of making sure they’re doing it correct, and we’re going to do it again next week.”
A few Canfield residents attended the event to watch the training, including members of the Tieche family. Robert Tieche was the longtime fire chief of the fire district who died May 28, 2011. His brother, Chuck, serves on Canfield City Council, and his son, Rob Tieche, is a firefighter with the department. Rob Tieche’s wife and kids watched the ladder drill, with one of his children dressed as a firefighter. Also in attendance was Deby Tieche, widow of Robert Tieche.
Also watching was Mike Narducci, who said, “The new guys on the force that are learning to do stuff that hopefully they won’t have to use.”
A firetruck left during the drill for a medical situation, Hutchison said.