Firefighters’ Skills Honed in High-Rise Drill

Fighting fires takes courage, skill and many hours of planning and training.

Besides the physical prowess and go-for-broke daring any firefighter needs before charging into an inferno, that person must have a plan for battling the fire.

On Sunday, more than 100 firefighters from the county, Oxnard and Ventura fire departments carried out a high-rise firefighting exercise at the 21-story tower on Esplanade Drive in Oxnard.

“You practice those things that you do the least,” said Battalion Chief Larry Whelan, who was in charge of the three- hour exercise. “These kinds of fires take a lot of organization and planning to get a hold of.”

With all the choreography of a world-class ballet, phalanxes of helmeted and canvas-jacketed firefighters stormed into the lobby of the gray, smoked-glass building and established a command center.

Then, after checking all the elevators for trapped people, crews with heavy oxygen tanks strapped to their backs bolted up the stairs with coils of heavy hose to the 20th floor to assess the mock fire and search for trapped victims. They found four hiding in closets and back rooms and successfully evacuated them from the smoke-filled floor.

“They did a real good job up there,” Whelan said. “We had the fire engaged very quickly and everything operated very efficiently.”

According to officials, high-rise fires are some of the wiliest and most dangerous. Flames often hide between floors, trapping victims in places where there is no escape.

More often than not, blazes require no less than 20 fire engine companies from several different departments to fight, necessitating the need for such drills.

Sunday’s exercise was the third such drill this year, with at least one more planned in November.

“High-rise fires are hard and they take a lot of coordination between departments,” Whelan said after the drill. “They help our efficiency and communication, in the event we ever have to respond to a real emergency.”