BATHURST’S CBD was the scene of a number of dramatic rescues on Tuesday night.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
NSW Fire and Rescue tested its firefighters physically and mentally – including asking them to navigate their way around with bags over their masks – in a training session designed to simulate a horror house fire.
“We throw the worst at them to prepare them,” Bathurst station officer Peter Willard explained.
The training exercise was held upstairs in the former McIntosh, McPhillamy and Co building on the corner of Howick and George streets.
The firefighters arrived at the scene and received a brief from the officer in charge: there had been a gas explosion in the stairwell and there were an unknown number of people trapped inside the building.
Adding to the authenticity of the exercise, volunteers from the Perthville Rural Fire Service acted as ‘persons trapped’ and were strategically placed around the building waiting to be rescued.
Once found, the volunteers had to be dragged back to a place of safety by the firefighters.
After station officer Willard briefed his crew, the firefighters erected ladders and entered the building in pairs, as they would in a real fire.
Wearing full breathing apparatus, the firefighters had bags placed over their masks to reduce their visibility to virtually nothing to simulate a smoke-filled room.
“They will virtually be blind. We’re putting shopping bags over their heads, making it very hard for them to see, which is what it’s like in a real fire,” station officer Willard said.
He said he made the conditions during the training session as bad as possible.
“Hopefully, when they are faced with a real fire, the conditions won’t be as bad, but potentially they can be, so we throw the worst at them to prepare them,” he said.
He said the training was deliberately exhaustive.
“The physical demands placed on firefighters can be extreme,” he said.
“In Tuesday’s exercise I didn’t make them wear their structural firefighting gear because I didn’t want them collapsing in the heat.
“In a real fire situation, the crews would be rotated every 15 to 20 minutes to stop this happening.”
Station officer Willard thanked the RFS volunteers for assisting in the training, and Bruce Bolam, who gave NSW Fire and Rescue access to the building.
He said the training was an invaluable tool for firefighters to improve and maintain their skills and acquire new ones.