Camp Trains Firefighters for Hot-and-Heavy Rescues

A new training camp in heavy-duty rescue techniques for firefighters was hailed by fire officials from across the state as having the “most potential for future training” of any camp of its kind in California.

The Camp Elliott Rescue School, dedicated Friday and situated east of Miramar Naval Air Station, will train 150 firefighters a year in the fundamentals of heavy-duty rescue operations, from tunneling to reach disaster victims underground to lowering injured people from a tower to the ground.

The school, which includes a bare building, a 50-foot tower and several blocks of concrete weighing from 500 pounds to 7 tons, took more than two years and $100,000 to build, according to Chuck Wilson, division chief of Vista fire department. It was previously an Army National Guard barracks and tank garage.

“Our goal is to have in three to five years a heavy-duty rescue team to go anywhere in the world,” Wilson said, adding that before the camp’s inception, individual fire departments were forced to improvise in training firefighters in rescue work.

“We would go out to a rock quarry in Vista for rappelling practice,” said Vista firefighter Mark Standifird, one of the first to try out the new tower. “This is much more realistic.”

The school will also teach personnel to respond to earthquakes. Included in the training will be shoring up unstable buildings, rescuing victims trapped under heavy debris and rappelling, all using simple equipment such as ladders and pulleys.

Weeklong classes at the two-acre site begin March 4, Wilson said.

Fire officials plan to expand the training to include more advanced techniques dealing with heavier materials within the next several years. “It’s a matter of the sophistication of our people,” Wilson said.

Oceanside fire engineer Ken Matsumoto, one of the technicians who helped build the school, said: “We’ve got an opportunity to expand this to accommodate far higher level rescue schools. We’ve got a lot of space and flexibility here to accomplish more difficult levels.”

The heavier-duty rescue techniques, called Rescue Fundamentals 2, will teach rescue workers to move blocks as heavy as 40 tons, Matsumoto said, pointing out that in the San Francisco earthquake last October, rescue crews had to dig through tons of rubble from the collapsed Interstate 880 freeway.

Those techniques, however, are still in conceptual stages by state fire marshals, Matsumoto said.

The only other camp in the state similar to Camp Elliott is located in Alameda County, Wilson said, but that facility does not have the potential for growth that the new facility does.

Camp Elliott will be used to train firefighters all across the county, said division Chief Dennis Sheean of National City during the camp’s dedication ceremony. Thirty-three students are already enrolled, he said.

Three-quarters of the funding for the facility came from in-kind donations by private San Diego firms.

“Our long-term goals involve the local community, the people that have the kind of heavy equipment we need for when the big (earthquake) comes,” Sheean said.

Also part of the camp’s goals is to “put together a strike team that combines trained personnel with heavy equipment crews to be ready to be called on at a moment’s notice,” Sheean said.