Class Crisis

It’s 3 o’clock in the morning and a single-engine airplane has crashed into a two-story building, causing the roof to collapse on a family living above a store. Los Angeles County firefighters rush to the scene. They enter the building, carefully maneuvering under buckled ceilings and across warped floors searching for victims.

The simulated urban search-and-rescue training exercise, which actually took place during daylight hours, was performed under the watchful eye of Capt. Don Hull, coordinator of the Del Valle Training Center.

The center, set high on a hill in the Santa Susana Mountains, looks like a movie studio back lot. There is the two-story collapsed building with an airplane tail sticking out of the roof. There is a 35-foot deep shaft. And there are tanker rail cars that leak “hazardous” liquid and gas.

Although the site has been used for training for the past three decades, Hull is the mastermind behind the new, comprehensive exercises he started last spring.

At the center, firefighters are taught how to rescue victims from collapsed buildings, storm drains, sewer pipes, trenches, mine shafts and canyon floors. They also learn how to extinguish oil refinery fires and how to handle hazardous material spills.

“I tried to pick the situations that they would most likely encounter,” said Hull, a 24-year veteran of the department. “The exercises are very close to the real thing. They are not playing games out there.”

In the coming years, Hull said, he hopes to add a simulated Metrolink train derailment, an MTA bus wreck, defensive driving school and a firefighters academy.

“The training exercises are designed to be confidence-builders,” Hull said. “We want them to recognize the hazards they are facing, and to know what they have to do to help victims.”