Many people ask us all the time what we spend
the
money on that is donated to us. Well this spring we made a trip to San
Diego to the Fire House World conference. We stopped by the Fireblast
booth and talked to them about training opportunities that they have
available. Fireblast manufactures live fire burn trailers that use
propane for their props. They informed us that they had a demo trailer
that was available for purchase. We took the information back to the
entire board and it was decided that we should investigate the
possibility of acquiring this type of trainer that could deliver to
departments across the state.
Fireblast hosted two board members at their manufacturing plant in
Riverside California to evaluate the unit. After returning and
presenting the findings to the board members, it was decided by the
board to purchase the trailer with a few modifications. We accepted
delivery of the trailer on May 18th just in time to display the unit at
the annual fire conference in Wenatchee. It has been stored at the
Pangborn Fire station in East Wenatchee since that purchase was
completed. About a week later the board purchased a 2005 Sterling truck
to pull the trailer.
We worked with Fireblast, Washington State Patrol, and Labor and
Industries for two months to obtain the proper paper work to be able to
start the training process for firefighters in the trailer. To date we
have trained about 14 instructors, some on the west side of the state
and some on the east side of the state. We have had some of the
instructors operating the trailer getting familiar with the set-up and
tear down of the equipment, computer controls and the way the fire acts
in the trailer.
On October 21 & 22 we will take our first road trip to Fairfield,
Washington to train 30 volunteer firefighters, which a good portion of
them have had little or no live fire training. This was our goal when we
bought this unit, to train volunteer departments who do not have much
of a budget for training or the ability to get away to a training
facility. We are very anxious to continue offering this training
opportunity to as many departments as we can. We intend to move the
trailer to the west side of the state on or around the first of November
where it will stay until around the first of April and then return it
to the east side of the state.
Visit our
Photo Gallery for more images of the trailer!
The
features of the trailer include the
following:
Portable, three room capability, on-board generator and smoke machine,
two gas-fired props flashover/rollover simulation, basement prop, roof
top ventilation prop, roof top safety railings, operator controlled flame
height and extinguishment on-board propane tanks, safety interlocks,
temperature monitoring, automatic safety shut down.
Capabilities:
Flashover/rollover,
interior attack, exterior attack, search and rescue, vertical and
horizontal ventilation, direct and indirect attack, fire behavior,
basement fire with staircase access.
If your department has an inquiry about this training unit, please call
our office at 1-800-340-8023 or fill in the form below to get it on your
training schedule.
Contact Us to have a
Washington State Firefighters'
Association representative contact you about scheduling a training date
with the fireblast trailer. Please include requested dates in your
email.
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