When you are fighting fire in hills of Northcentral Pennsylvania and the call summons you outside of our small towns into the rural townships, one of your highest priorities is planning, establishing, and maintaining an adequate water supply. Without water, our tools and tactics are pretty much useless. So how do you amass a water supply of several thousand gallons to fight your typical fully involved structure in the middle of nowhere? That is the focus of the two day Rural Fireground Water Movement course being hosted by Crary Hose Company, sponsored by the Tioga County Department of Emergency Services, offered by Bucks County Community College and taught by fire instructor JR Erdley.
Today was day 1 of this deep-dive into establishing water supply in rural areas. Firefighters from Dept 5 Crary Hose, Dept 3 Elkland, Dept 6 Knoxville-Deerfield, Dept 11 Middlebury Township, Dept 14 Osceola and Dept 48 Coudersport spent the day in the classroom, learning the specifics about the three main options for rural water supply: Engine Tank Water, Tanker Shuttle Operations, and Pump Relay Operations. Each approach was discussed in detail. Topics discussed included calculations of friction loss taking into account all inputs, water volume needs in relationship to the size of the structure, common appliances used in drafting and relaying, hose diameter friction coefficients, the proper methods for establishing each type of water supply, complications that may arise, and as always safe operations during all aspects. Our instructor has a ton of experience and was a straight-shooter, giving us real-world insight into all the numbers and formulas.
Day 2 will be next Saturday, 8am to 4pm. We will doing active practical application and practice of the tactics that we learned in class today, as well as brushing up on our pump operator skills.
Congratulations to Middlebury Township Fire Department on the purchase of their brand new Pumper Tanker. Those in attendance today got a chance to look the truck over, and by all accounts it is an impressive, versatile addition to your fleet!
We would like to thank all 22 firefighters that turned out for the training today. We are proud of the dedicated group of volunteers we have in this area. Thank you to Crary Hose member Cassy Adams for picking up lunch from Subway in Westfield and serving it to the class, Tanker Dave Earle for pickup up refreshments, and a HUGE thank you to the Training Committee: Todd Streeter, Asst. Chief Brent Skelton and Chief Goltz for setting the class up at our station. Our training committee has lined up a number of training opportunities this spring and summer, making up for time lost over the last couple of years. If you are a firefighter and interested in joining us for classes, check out the Tioga County DES Training Mobile App. We will be hosting a Vehicle Rescue Awareness and Operations Training series with Pro Board Certification Test in May, an Aerial Apparatus Practices class in June, and Module 1 of the Firefighter 1 modular classes in August.
If you are a prospective firefighter, there is no better time than now to stop out to the 5 House, or any firehouse, and sign up to give back to your community. There are plenty of opportunities to get the training you need to hit the ground running at Crary Hose! Training is provided at no cost to the firefighter, and we’ll even buy your gear and get you equipped to be a productive and impactful member of the service right away. Come out any Monday night at 7:00pm and see what we are all about.
