Firefighters Get Course in Stunt Safety

The subject was maiming, shooting, electrocuting, exploding and incinerating the human body.

The script was filled with hits and squibs, mortars, blanks, soft grain caps and blood bags.

The theme, odd as it may seem, was safety.

For about 50 Glendale firefighters assembled on temporary bleachers behind a movie studio in south Glendale on Friday afternoon, it was probably the most engaging two hours of formal instruction they’ve ever sat through.

One of them even got splattered on the forehead with a blood-soaked plug of wax that was shot from a blowgun. In Hollywood, that’s a “head hit.”

The exercise was part of an eight-hour course all Glendale firefighters will be taking during the weekend, covering just about everything the movie industry does that could be a real-life threat to life and limb. The curriculum was designed by the state fire marshall to improve the supervision of studio and location shooting by fire departments.

Even as instruction was under way Friday, State Fire Marshall James McMullen awarded a plaque to Glendale Fire Chief John M. Montenero, honoring Glendale as the first city in California to put all its personnel through the course.

Though hardly the movie capital of the world, Glendale has its own share of the action. The course was being offered at the Glendale Studios on South Glendale Avenue, where the game show “Jackpot” was shot earlier this year.

The city also hosts up to four or five location shoots a week, which interest the department because they use such equipment as 1,000-watt lamps, mobile generators, fueling trucks and high-tech vehicles, like a camera boom truck that can go 85 m.p.h., with four-wheel electric power and six-wheel steering.

Each time a crew sets up, a fire inspector will drop by to check things out, said Capt. Steve Wood, who was supervising the training program.

In the more traditional portion of their instruction, the firefighters observed displays on the use and abuse of the most common type of equipment they will encounter on movie locations.

Then they went to see Kevin McCarthy of Players Special Effects, who showed them the proper way to evoke every form of annihilation without hurting a soul.

McCarthy blew up charges called hits and squibs to break cables, demolish wood and explode a blood bag on his assistant’s chest. He fired zirconium-loaded plastic balls out of an air gun to simulate strafing runs. He demonstrated various smoke machines and flash explosives. He lit a homemade flame thrower he uses to ignite stunt workers in fireproof suits.

After splattering an entry wound on the fireman’s forehead, McCarthy used a protective rig strapped to his assistant to demonstrate the technique of simulating a bullet’s exit.

“Are you ready to gore out?” he asked, touching the ignition wires to power.

“Blood” splattered from the assistant’s back onto a white backdrop.

The firemen applauded the effect.

Finishing up, McCarthy set a stunt man afire and made a mushroom cloud with gasoline in a mortar. The fireball went 30 feet in the air, the concussion setting off car alarms all around.

Wood phoned fire dispatchers to tell them it was only make-believe.