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DIVISION
By Ryan Beckers
Photos by Ben Wurzell
news
Covering the Training and Safety Division including
Aviation, Wildland and EMS.
TOWER 9
By Dustin Krajeski
With 32 graduates, Tower IX not only marks the fifth such tower
over the past four years, but also exemplifies County Fire’s
continued commitment to produce the best trained probationary
firefighters any department could hope for.
Through 16 weeks of training, recruits experienced live fire evolu-
tions with the goal of producing the same situational awareness
skills one would find in a five-year firefighter. This was done
through a comprehensive and aggressive burning regimen that
incorporated all basic firefighting skills with live fire. Further, as a
new skill was introduced it would be performed under IDLH condi-
tions in the hopes of building appropriate muscle memory for skill
application in a realistic environment. All this required individual
training burns for hose advancement, water application (interior
and exterior), search techniques, vent-enter-isolate-search,
forcible entry, ventilation and RIC operations. Once all skills were
introduced and performed under live fire conditions, scenario
burns were performed to shift towards building crew continuity,
solid fire ground set-up procedures and coordinated efforts. The
assigned cadre members developed this plan collectively.
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Captain Dustin Krajeski has served as the coordinator for this and each tower over the
past several years.
GLEN HELEN
FIRE CAMP UPDATE:
With the purchase of new burn containers from Drager,
Richard Sewell Training Center will soon be getting a sort
of facelift. These new phase 1 and phase 5 burn containers
will be delivered in late August, and will assist the training
cadre with the new modern fire behavior live training as
well as continued instruction in vent-enter-isolate-search.
The drill grounds are being redesigned to receive these new
containers, as are the new training officer space, which will
add six additional offices.
Training Officer Jon Garber and several other dedicated
individuals have rebuilt our Hazmat certification training
program. Captain Garber and his dedicated cadre run four
quarterly drills per year and administer a testing process
during the final drill of the year. Drills are designed from
feedback from personnel assigned to the Hazmat stations
and the needs of the department.
Personnel changes:
Camp 15 sends a “farewell and goodbye” to FSA III Eduardo Molina as he departs SBCoFD
after four years on Crew 6-1, having served the past several months as an assistant foreman
at Camp 15. He will be moving to Georgia to start a career as a Firefighter/Paramedic trainee
with the Gwinnett County Fire Department.
Durk Carlisle has temporarily departed Camp 15 as he has been promoted to captain. Durk
is one of our founding foremen and has contributed immensely to the development of the
inmate hand crew program. We hope to see him return to the camp in the near future!
Local 935 congratulates Durk Carlisle on his
promotion to the rank of engineer.
Captain Nathan Lopez has taken a temporary assignment as a crew foreman at Camp 15.
Crew Foreman task book:
Recent training for Tower 9 has helped confirm that
County Fire may indeed have one of the better firefighter
accountability/rapid intervention (RIC) training facilities
in the nation. Two years ago, the need for a new location
led to procurement of a two-story structure at the old
George Air Force Base grounds at Southern California
Logistics Airport. With renovations, the building now houses
over 20 challenging props, giving firefighter trainees the
opportunity to receive intensi