Page 11 - Ft. Huachuca Scout 7-17-15

FRIDAY, JULY 17, 2015 The Scout 11A

e common mission

our operation- Chris Mercer, station captain, Fire Sta- “A lot of people don’t think about [car Todd Erslev, firefighter, suits up with all of his equipment including a breath-
ans, excluding tion Two. seat safety] till the day before or day of ing mask while participating in the exercise. Erslev has been working with
birth,” Nicholson said. the department since November 2014.
h is the newest Mercer also explained the majority of
, is located on calls are medical. Both Fire Stations One “The parents will ask, ‘can you install
ary mission is and Two house ambulances. Ambulatory the car seat?’ and they get a little up-
re fighting. services are contracted out through Ari- set when we tell them we’ll teach them
e or fire on a zona Ambulance. “They provide para- how to do it. We instruct them [because]
l attack. Fire- medics and a higher standard of care,” we can’t be there when [they] decide to
ll respond and Mercer said. All of the firefighters are take it out to clean it up, and [we] want
call in mutual Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) to make sure they properly know how to
Forest Service certified and are able to assist. use it,” said Juan Zamora, a firefighter at
s. Station One.
an handle, but Fire Station Three is located at Libby
uring the sum- Army Air Field. Its main goal is to sup- The fire staff also visit schools and
capabilities or port the airfield. Its crews also specialize support various events.
at. The Forest in confined space and technical rescue,
ibed burns and and are an additional asset for wild land “Just spreading the fire safety mission
aid Nicholson. firefighting if needed. and reminding people to be smart,” Reco
re Department said.
ding fire agen- “They are the initial subject matter ex-
perts to [respond] for technical rescue,” Some of the collective training the
ion,” said Josh Reco said. three stations do together takes place
f operation, at monthly, such as structual fire training.
o go downtown Chris Perry, station captain, Fire Capt. Steven Brown, Fire Station 2, ex-
ts if we get a Station Three, said, “We respond to air- plained the training exercise.
help them out. craft emergencies, median rescue like
ggest threat to traffic accidents, we also have a brush “Today we did a basic structural train-
ior is so erratic truck here so we respond initially on wild ing drill to stay proficient in our struc-
e it’s going to land calls in the area. Our primary [mis- tural firefighting capabilities and the
oes a good job sion] out here is the airfield. We have to ability to rescue victims and combat fires
e possible haz- be within three minutes to get to any part in structures,” Brown said. “Inside they
rush and stuff of the runway. made entry and did a primary search pat-
Jimenez said. tern, then a right hand search pattern,
firefighters on “We do train on emergency shutdown basically they followed a wall until they
of a morning on the aircrafts in case the pilots are inca- found the victim, extinguished the fire
ompany level pacitated; so we’ll have to go in and de- and rescued the victim.”
ining, a lunch ploy the trucks, then go interior to shut it
ysical training down and extract the pilots,” Perry said. “It is important for us to stay profi-
just stay ready cient in our firefighting skills because we
es. If an emer- The fire stations also partake in vari- don’t combat a lot of structure fires here
e training then ous community projects such as teach- on Fort Huachuca,” Brown added.
s handled, said ing parents how to properly install car
seats. Nicholson is hoping to implement Firefighter Stephen Krause said, “The
a new system where parents can make training keeps us fresh on what we’re
an appointment to learn how to keep supposed to be doing. That way when
their children safe. Parents interested are you get on the real thing you kind of have
able to make an appointment by calling that muscle memory and remember ex-
533.2116. actly what to do.”

Firefighter Rene Monje, connects a hose to a hydrant during the beginning stages of the training exercise. A Fort Huachuca Fire Department firefighter practices rescuing an individual
from a structure fire during a training exercise here.