COUNTY FIRE DISTRICT
INVESTING IN THE FUTURE
TRAINING PROPS
SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY FIRE’S TRAINING DIVISION TOOK
DELIVERY OF OUR NEW DRAGER TRAINING PROPS LAST
JULY. THIS PURCHASE ANTICIPATED OUR APPLICATION FOR
ACCREDITED LOCAL ACADEMY (ALA) STATUS THROUGH
CALIFORNIA STATE FIRE TRAINING.
HANDS-ONLY
CPR
San Bernardino County
Firefighters are offering
valuable training that
could help save a life
To review, ALA is a requirement to be an accredited Firefighter
I academy, a designation which allows our training and our peo-
ple to consign training certificates upon tower cadets and oth-
ers without the proxy of a third-party accreditation source like
a local college. With the purchase of the phase one and phase
five (three-story building), we now meet the requirements for
live-fire training and the height requirement for a training facil-
ity per State Fire Training.
This project was budgeted for the 2018/19 fiscal year for approximately
$500,000, including cost of the phase one and phase five props plus de-
livery and set up. The training division gives special thanks to Firefight-
er/Paramedic Robert Stine and the members of International Union of
Operation Engineers Local 12, who put numerous hours into grading and
moving old props around on the training ground to make room for the
new ones.
• More than 350,000 out-of-hospital cardiac
arrests happen in the United States each year
After delivery and setup was completed, Drager sent out a train-the-
trainer team to provide education to ten burn cadre members. This week-
long course gave our cadre the tools to perform quality burns for upcom-
ing classes. They learned the proper fuel packages necessary to make
a good learning environment as well when to properly cool down fire or
open and shut doors.
The phase one burn container uses many of the same principles from
our old flashover container; the difference is the fuel package is on an
elevated platform so it is easier to instruct and see fire behavior. In this
prop we teach fire behavior and how smoke will ignite and roll fire across
the ceiling. We also show the proper technique to cool down this ignition
and knock it back. We can also show how door control can affect the fire
room. By shutting the door, the fire will go back to decay status; when we
• Survival depends on immediately receiving CPR
open it back up the fire will intensify. The training division has scheduled
training for the entire department in modern fire behavior training utilizing
this phase one prop, with completion before Christmas.
The phase five burn container is a multi-faceted three-story prop. This prop
has a total of four burn rooms which can be used from numerous different
fire attack positions, including ground-level, above-ground or below-ground
attacks, as well as ground-level with extension to the second floor, and final-
ly high-rise/standpipe simulations. This structure also hosts a Denver-drill
and other RIC operations props, firefighter survival training, vent-entry-
isolate-search (VEIS), ventilation over fire (or straight vertical ventilation),
rappelling off third floor and other USAR drills.
The training division is excited for the opportunities this new purchase will
bring us.
• Immediate CPR can double or triple
chances of survival
• Seventy percent of out-of-hospital
CPR happens in the home
• 46 percent of people receive immediate CPR
• Hands-Only CPR shown to be as
effective as conventional CPR
• Takes 2-4 minutes to learn
Bryan James is currently assigned to the Special Operations Division as a training
officer. Bryan is also a piper and the band manager for the Local 935 Pipes and Drums
52 FIREWIRE • FALL 2019
LEARN CPR • GET THE APP • SAVE A LIFE
Contact: Engineer Lee Martin
[email protected] • 760-981-8164
www.sbcfire.org/Programs/PulsePoint.aspx
FALL 2019 • FIREWIRE 53