Excellence is not an act it is a habit......That's why we train.....

The morning of May 12, 2012 dawned with a beautiful sunrise and mild temperatures. A very good day for a training burn and our members were ready for it. We had obtained a house from one of our fine citizens off of Shady Mile Drive in station 9's first due. Our training officer Richard Sullivan checked it out and found it was in great shape for a burn with it only requiring a little work to make it compatible with NFPA 1403 (National Fire Protection Association) to allow for a safe training exercise. There's always sheetrock to put up on the windows and our guys built a wall in one of the larger rooms in order to get more burns out of that part of the house. These are some of our members who step up every time something needs to get done and they are also the ones who show up for the burn. Hat's off to all of them and Sully for taking the time to insure that our firefighters are ready to answer the call for service and know what they are doing when they get there.
Fire Chief Shawn Downs had the overall command of the burn and along with his team of stokers (firefighters who set the fires) we were ready to go. Had the general safety talk before hand by the Fire Chief then he broke all into crews with 4 to a crew. We had attack, back-up, RIT (Rapid Intervention Team) and an on deck crew that would be the next one up after the first crew came out. Had Safety inside during burn and myself on the back side of the house with the Fire Chief having an overall look at the front. For some of our older members never fear that if you show up they will find something for you to do and it won't be as an errand boy. The training people will use you for the experience you bring to the drill so come on out and join a few of us older guys.
As crews were rotated thru the house everything went smoothly and it seemed that when it was time for the next on deck crew to get ready to go in they were rested up enough to move in with no problems. It was nice to see no damaged gear, no bail outs, and no air mask malfunctions. All the guys and gals seemed to really enjoy the burn and made it known to both the chief and the training people.
Every crew got the chance to go thru several times before the structure of the house started to fail from the heavy fire in the rooms and it was decided by command to let the house go. This was after almost three hours of burns. It was nice to see the newer people pared with older firefighters because it gives them a feeling that they can hang with the veterans and just maybe they will be able to answer to something other than rookie around the station and fire ground.
During the entire burn our Associates were there to provide rehab with the old stand-by Gatorade and bagels with cream cheese and when we were finished with the burn they had lunch waiting for everyone. After everyone sat around talking about how much fire they saw (LOL) and eating some lunch it was time for the dreaded clean up. Man that is the time that you get real tired when it's time to pick up the equipment and all the hose lines. Our water supply (handled by Keith Fairfax) was I'm guessing about 800' of 4" line to a fire hydrant down a steep hill on Maryland Route 4 were Engine 91 supplied Engine 93 and Engine 32 on the scene. Used several pre-connects off both engines for both attack and back up. No problems and that's just the way everyone likes it.
We were finished and wrapped up by around 1300 hours and headed back to our perspective stations to maybe get a little rest before the next call.
Many thanks to all who came out and either got in some training our just helped out. Have another house to burn after the convention in Ocean City so stand-by and keep an eye out for notice from the training committee.