Day 2 of the Rural Fireground Water Movement class was held at Crary Hose on 4/30/2022. Bucks County Community College Fire Instructor JR Erdley presided over the class. Firefighters from Dept 5 Crary Hose, Dept 3 Elkland, Dept 6 Knoxville-Deerfield, Dept 11 Middlebury Township, Dept 14 Osceola and Dept 48 Coudersport learned to apply the course material from the previous week’s classroom work in a practical setting through the execution of two scenarios: a pump relay scenario and a water/tanker shuttle scenario.
In the first scenario, participants were tasked with establishing a water supply from a static source and relaying that water via LDH a simulated distance of 1200ft to the attack engine. The firefighters split into three task groups and performed three evolutions of this scenario, rotating through the tasks for source/drafting engine, relay engine and attack engine. Engine 5-2 was used for drafting at the impoundment, Tanker 11-5 served as a relay pumper at the 600ft mark, and Engine 5-3 served as the attack pumper, discharging via deck gun and blitz nozzle back into the impoundment.
For the second scenario, the students set up a tanker shuttle to perform the same basic function of the first leg of the pump relay scenario. The hose line from Engine 5-2 to Tanker 11-5 was shortened to 100ft and a tanker fill site was established. A manifold was installed at the site to allow for multiple tankers to be attached and filled simultaneously. Where Tanker 11-5 had been used as a relay pumper, Hose 6-9 was placed. Two drop tanks were deployed and Hose 6-9 used 6″ hard suction and a low-level strainer to draft from the first drop tank. A second section of 6″ hard suction and a low-level strainer with jet siphon was used to transfer water between the drop tanks. Hose 6-9 pumped this water through a 5″ hose line to Engine 5-3, which remained as attack engine and discharged back into the pond. Tanker 5-5, Tanker 11-5, Tanker 14-5 and Tanker 18-5 served as the tanker shuttle. This shuttle supported a continuous attack volume of between 500 and 1,000 gpm. Two evolutions of this scenario were performed.
After teardown, the class was served lunch by Crary Hose member Cassy Adams. Thank you Cassy for serving lunch during both training sessions. Thanks as well to the Cowanesque Valley High School for allowing us to use your campus for part of this training.
Instructor Erdley did an excellent job, mixing in classic and modern techniques and conveying the value of both in the application of the principles taught in the class. He is very knowledgeable of the subject matter. We thank him for making the long trip to the PA Wilds to teach this important class.
Thank you again to the training committee: Firefighter Todd Streeter, 1st Assistant Chief Brent Skelton and Chief Bill Goltz for arranging a great calendar of classes for this spring and summer here at Crary Hose.
