| At 8:30am on Sunday morning, Nanuet volunteers were alerted to respond to a routine automatic alarm sounding at the Nanuet High School. Upon arriving on scene minutes later, Chief AJ Knapp (8-1) reported heavy smoke showing from the upper floor of the school and requested mutual aid from several surrounding departments.
There was no fire, however. This, was only a drill. The massive training exercise, conceived by Chief Knapp, brought together a dozen different emergency response agencies from Clarkstown and Ramapo, including no less than 6 local fire departments.
The scenario was a fire in one of the upstairs chemistry laboratories that filled the school with thick smoke which overcame numerous victims. Responding firefighters were charged with the responsibility of locating the fire, and implementing a plan of attack while searching for and recovering live victims (played by volunteers from the Rockland County Fire Explorer Post 44).
Initial crews entering the dark, smokey school encountered several challenges, including locked doors and hoses too short to reach the simulated fire. As they worked to overcome each obstacle, search crews simultaneously scoured the top floor of the school for victims, finding and rescuing each one.
In addition to crews working inside the school, teams from 8-Tower and 25-1575 used powerful demolition saws to simulate cutting holes in the roof.
"In a real fire, ventilation holes are used to let smoke and heat out of the affected area of the building, allowing firemen inside to see and operate easier" said Craig Paxton, a Nanuet FD Lieutenant.
Pearl River FD (Dept 12) and Congers FD (Dept 3) provided FAST teams for the exercise. FAST teams respond to any possible or confirmed fire in order to function as an emergency rescue team for firefighters who may get hurt or injured during initial fire attack. Later on in the evolution, firefighters inside the building gave a MAYDAY signal, springing these FAST teams into action.
"They're able to use this drill to practice their rescue tactics, in the event that a firefighter were to become injured" said Jason DiSalvo, a veteran Assistant Chief of the Congers Fire Dept.
All in all, the drill lasted roughly 2 hours until the pretend fire was declared under control.
"It's practice like this that keeps our firefighters sharp and ready to respond to any type of emergency. It's important for different fire departments to be able to work together as a team in the event of a large incident like this." said AJ Knapp, the master planner and commander of the drill. |
