On Saturday April 7, 2012, 35 volunteers of the West Grove Fire Company took time off their Easter holiday weekend to train at the West Chester Fire Training Center. The weather conditions that day were in the volunteers favor with sunny clear skies and a cool breeze. The crews took advantage of the great forecast and worked on their teamwork and fire suppression skills.
The day was split up into two evolutions. The first half of the day focused on three house fire scenarios. Each scenario was simulated as if it was the real thing. The difficulty of each scenario ranged from a single room and contents fire, to a house fire with multiple floors fully involved with occupants reportedly trapped. Crews were faced with the tasks of establishing a water supply, stretching the initial attack lines, placing ground ladders on the structure, and conducting a primary and secondary victim search.
The second half of the day consisted of hose line management drills. Volunteers were split up into different crews and as a team advanced a hose line into the structure for fire suppression. Each crewmember rotated through each of the hose line positions in order to ensure everyone had a opportunity to practice hose line advancement and nozzle techniques.
All volunteers worked well together as a team and gained valuable experience in maintaining crew integrity while extinguishing fires quickly and rescuing any victims trapped.
