Smoke billowed from a building at Park City Fire District’s Station 33 campus on Bitner Road, its windows and doors stained black.
The blaze on Thursday morning was intentional, though. The structure was created to withstand fires for staff trainings like the one held that morning.
It was the first burn day for the 12 Park City Fire recruits who made the cut from 150 applicants and who will now undergo a 13-week fire academy before being hired on as full-time staff. For most, it would be their first time ever walking into a burning building.
The initial burn day usually happens during the first week of camp, Park City Fire instructors said, but Labor Day weekend pushed the demonstration to the second week.
Split into two groups, an instructor led each into a room where a stack of pallets had ignited into a bonfire. Then, the door closed behind them.
Max Dosher, battalion chief of the Fire District’s training division, said the first drill’s goal is for the recruits to become familiar with an Immediately Dangerous to Life or Health environment, or IDLH, as it’s officially called, and to observe the fire’s behavior. The room reaches temperatures up to 500 degrees toward the ground, and 1,200 degrees at the ceiling, he said.
“I know it’s corny, but fire is living and breathing,” instructor David Horning told his group. “It acts in a certain way based (on) what you’re giving and what you’re taking away.”
What happens to the fire when a window is opened, letting smoke out but also bringing oxygen in? What if all the doors and windows are open, versus one or none? How does the visibility change when low to the ground compared to standing up? Same for the heat? What does adding more fuel — in this case, hay — do to the blaze? What happens when water is sprayed on the flames, and at what angle or what pressure?
All of these scenarios played out for the recruits.
“Now that smoke layer is banking down. It’s getting hot. It’s getting smoky. Visibility is getting awful,” instructor Jackson Letterman narrated to his group. “When we open this door, you’ll see that smoke layer is just going to be coming down, coming down, coming down. That’s when we talk about, ‘Hey, get low.’ We can see down low.”
The scenario was also a chance to test out their turnout gear. The three-layer firefighting suits are Kevlar on the outside, with an air barrier and then a moisture barrier on the inside, said Horning. Recruits also wear oxygen masks that fully cover their faces, with heavy tanks strapped to them like backpacks, and an axe at their hip. All the gear weighs about 55 pounds, said Dosher.
“This is the first time they’re training with their masks on, trying to get over any (claustrophobia),” said lead instructor Sam Robison. “Make sure that they are going to not feel that way inside of a hot environment.”
Each suit is also equipped with a personal safety alarm device that beeps when it stops detecting movement, said Dosher. In real life, the sound helps locate a fallen or unconscious firefighter. But for the recruits, that device also takes some getting used to. One instructor said that’s because it needs an occasional shake to prevent the alarm from blaring.
“When the World Trade Center fell, that’s all you could hear for like three days … all the guys that were buried (whose) PASSes just kept going off until the batteries died,” Dosher said.
About a quarter of the state’s fire districts run their own in-house fire academies, said Dosher, and Park City Fire District has been running its recruitment since 2004. Usually held annually, or twice a year if needed, the camp helps top off crew numbers just in time for the busy ski season. The district usually staffs around 100 people across its now-eight fire stations.
It’s not a tryout by any means, but a professional trial to ensure anyone hired by Park City Fire is up to its standards, physically and mentally, and those of the community. Dosher said the firefighters appreciate the support and do everything they can to make residents proud.
“The community owns the fire department. We’re just stewards of it,” he said.
The only initial hiring requirement for the district is an emergency medical technician, or EMT, certification, said Dosher. The rest they can be trained in: structure firefighting, hazmat operations and awareness, and advanced EMT courses.
“Everybody that’s gotten to this point has put in a ton of work,” said Robison. “They’ve passed a basic entrance exam, which is a written test, an oral interview and a physical test.”
With camp, that testing continues.
Each morning, the recruits start with at least an hour of physical training, whether a hike to Jupiter Peak, a run through Old Town or a strength workout, said Dosher. In some cases, benchmarks require a recruit to complete certain tasks within a limited time. They’ll also be fully backcountry trained to complete rescues, he said.
In addition to physical requirements, classwork will cover fire, medical and vehicle extrication “evolutions” or scenarios, and the recruits will also work one 24-hour shift to simulate being in the field.
“We’re making sure they can complete the job adequately,” Robison said. “It’s up to them if they want to push through. It’s really hard. It’s really physically demanding. … Everybody comes prepared a little differently. Some people are trail runners, some people are lifters, all the above, but we try and bring it all together.”
After the camp, Robison said the Fire District will hire anyone who meets the standards, whether that’s all 12 or just one.
To graduate, the recruits must complete 15 laps up the steps of Utah Olympic Park’s 120-meter Nordic ski jump — a Park City Fire tradition since the academy’s creation, said Dosher. Then, the recruit will officially become a Park City firefighter.