Firefighters Receive Hands-On Training at Annual Convention

WILDWOOD — A team of two firefighters, one armed with an ax and the other with a crowbar, works quickly to force open a door outside Pine Avenue Fire Department.
Despite the absence of real flames and smoke, the scenario was intense. As part of an eight-hour training course, the exercise was designed to educate firefighters on the necessary skills to better prepare them for emergencies they may encounter.
Firefighters from three states signed up to go through a hands-on-training course on Sept. 17, before the start of this weekend’s annual New Jersey State Firefighter’s Convention.
A training component was added to the annual firefighters gathering last year and this year the program added a second course, both designed to help firefighters do their jobs safely.
Capt. Dan Speigel of the Wildwood Fire Department and Greg Collier, a battalion chief with the Mount Laurel Fire Department, organized the courses. The classes were offered as a joint effort between the Cape May County Fire Chief’s Association, New Jersey Division of Fire Safety and the “Everyone Goes Home” Life Safety Initiative Program.
“What we wanted was to bring training to the convention,” Speigel said. “Firefighters are now coming to the convention specifically because we offer training like this.”
Firefighters learned that the days of kicking down doors were over at the forcible entry class.
“Forcible entry when performed by a trained member or team can mean the difference between a quick knock-down or complete loss,” according to New York Fire Department Brotherhood Instructors. “Utilizing attributes such as knowledge, skill and correct technique instead of simply brute strength will allow passage through today’s forcible entry problems.”
“Some people think that firefighters just like to break stuff when they need to enter or exit a building. This course teaches the correct technique to get safely in and out,” Speigel said as took the Herald for an in-depth tour through the various forcible entry scenarios and descriptions of the “tools of the trade.”
Firefighters learned:
• Force inward and outward opening doors
• Force padlocks using a duck-bill lock breaker, a screwdriver
• Cut a padlock with a power saw
• Perform 10 cuts with a power saw to simulate the removal of window bars
• Practice through the lock techniques on hundreds of locks on display
Across town, another group was learning a self-rescue and survival hands-on-training class, specifically tailored to build confidence and education in the face of life threatening situations at a building on Lincoln Avenue.
The hands-on training simulates conditions in firefighting environments forcing firefighters to cut through walls, climb through small openings, deal with tangled wires and escape through windows.
“We’re training firemen how to stay alive and get out of buildings,” said instructor Dan DiRenzo of the Camden County Fire Academy Safety & Survival Unit.
The actual business of the convention gets underway Sept. 18 and continues Sept. 19 followed by the annual parade at 1 p.m.