Oklahoma City Bombing Prompts Disaster Training : Readiness: Firefighters from three counties are taking part in a weeklong drill that includes learning to rescue victims from collapsed buildings.

Prompted by the Oklahoma City bombing, more than 40 firefighters from Orange, Los Angeles and Riverside counties on Friday began a week of disaster training, learning to remove victims trapped under collapsed buildings.

Guy Brown, a firefighter-paramedic from Garden Grove and the coordinator of the Urban Search and Rescue Task Force, said California’s natural disasters in recent years also prompted the need for disaster training.

At one of the four simulated disaster sites, firefighters gathered around concrete blocks weighing nearly eight tons to remove a 200-pound rubber dummy. After nine firefighters elevated the collapsed blocks using metal poles, air bags and wooden blocks, firefighter Don Lamkin from Santa Fe Springs crawled between them toward his goal.

“Do you need anything to get through,” yelled one of his teammates.

“I’m fine so far,” yelled Lamkin, inching closer to the body.

Lamkin later came out from the narrow opening with the dummy in tow.

His thoughts on the experience? “He’s heavy,” Lamkin said laughing.

At the next site, the firefighters rescued a victim inside a collapsed structure. They worked in small groups, each doing different tasks.

Two men crawled through a 3-by-3-foot area, calling out specific sizes of wood wedges they needed to support the structure from further collapse. Outside, several men sawed the wood and passed the wedges to team members.

Robert Masonis, a Newport Beach firefighter for 14 years and the instructor for the “interior collapse” drill, said the rescuers learn important safety measures.

“Usually, when we arrive at the situation the victim’s family all want you to go in there right away,” Masonis said. “You really want to do something to help them. But you also have to consider safety factors first.” Bruce Pulgencio, a Costa Mesa firefighter, said the goal “is to get the victims out, not to rescue the rescuers.”

In a third exercise, the “high-rise rescue,” firefighters climbed to a third floor, drilled a hole, then rescued a dummy victim trapped on the second floor. They placed the dummy in a metal body basket and slid it down a rope to safety.

At the last stop, the group practiced rescue procedures for a natural gas explosion.

Team members first built a wooden A-frame structure, then erected it over a manhole. A firefighter was lowered into the hole in full-body harness, supported by the frame. He attached a body harness to a dummy and lifted it to safety.