Residents of Silver Creek were alarmed on Tuesday morning when they saw a cloud of smoke and a house ablaze. However, the fire was nothing more than a firefighting training exercise for the Park City Fire District.
Park City Fire District Battalion Chief Bob Evans said the house, which was donated by the Lind family in April, provided the District with the opportunity to practice a variety of skills.
“We did ventilation training where you light a fire and let the building charge with smoke and see if it ventilates properly,” Evans said. “We also did firefighter rescue training where we simulate that a firefighter was trapped in a building and they have to radio their location.”
Park City Fire got the approval for the burn drill at 2 p.m. on Monday and lit the fire at 6 a.m. on Tuesday. Evans says that since they were still in an area where they had to conserve water and they wanted the building to burn as much as possible. Only 268 gallons of water were used.
“We wouldn’t have been able to do it if we hadn’t had this rain,” Evans said. “We were able to lift burn restrictions and we had a small window to do it.”
Other training exercises that the District was able to conduct included lighting small fires in one room, rooftop ventilating and firefighter self-rescue training.
The self-rescue simulated a situation where a collapse occurs behind a firefighter and he is unable to get out of the house the way he came in. Evans said the techniques for teaching firefighters how to get out of structures in situations like this are vital.
The crew, 12 of whom were on the scene on Tuesday, was able to completely take down the house by starting it on fire at one end. They videotaped it and stood by to track its progress.
“It was really amazing to watch it’s not something we get to do very often,” Evans said. “Usually we’re putting a fire out.”
The firefighters were able to watch the fire from a safe distance to see how the structure collapsed after it was compromised. How far a wall falls out of a house and how far a collapse can spread ash or bricks were important observations made, Evans said.
Exercises such as this one Evans says are rare, as this house had no surrounding structures within 200 yards. He pointed to other examples such a structure the crew was able to burn on Old Ranch Rd. in 2001 and a preschool in which they were able to light 75 individual fires, but he says this burn drill stood out.
Evans was also impressed with residents in Silver Creek during the exercise.
“We were very impressed with their alertness and awareness of what goes on in their community,” Evans said. “We like people that pay attention to what goes on in their communities, especially when it has to do with fire. We’d rather have them overreacting than under reacting.”
Evans said there were at least 50 to 60 people who came up to members of the fire crew to ask questions and talk about their concerns related to fire. He remarked that getting to know the citizens of the Silver Creek community was vital.
“We realize that even though we’re firefighters and preventing fires is our main goal, the people who are really essential to our goal are the citizens,” Evans said.