ANAHEIM : Rescue Training Center to Be Dedicated Today
A new underground training facility will be used by firefighters and other search-and-rescue workers to simulate the conditions that confront rescue personnel when they save victims from collapsed buildings and mine cave-ins.
Materials, design and labor for the 600-foot-long tunnel system, which will be dedicated today, were donated by a consortium of contractors and heavy-equipment renters after 1994’s Northridge earthquake.
The tunnels were built at the North Net Fire Training Center, which is owned and operated by Anaheim, Garden Grove and Orange.
The center also serves as the training headquarters of California Task Force 5, the urban search-and-rescue team that went to Oklahoma City after the deadly terrorist bombing at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.
Pipes that make up the tunnel system range in diameter from 60 inches to just 24 inches. “It’s a very confined space,” said Capt. Scott Schoeppner of the Anaheim Fire Department. “It’s hard to work in, and it’s pitch black.”
A simulated rescue will be part of the dedication ceremony at 1 p.m. at the training center, 2400 E. Orangewood Ave.
The drill calls for a search dog to locate a “victim” who will then be extricated by firefighters and placed aboard a medical rescue helicopter.
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