Home ECCFPD ECCFPD: Station 93 Trains for the “Big One”

ECCFPD: Station 93 Trains for the “Big One”

by ECT

I had an opportunity to visit East Contra Costa Fire Protection District Station 93 yesterday as they conducted a training exercise simulating being called to an incident they would consider “the big one”.

This exercise allowed them to practice fighting a fire where they could not save a building–which means lots of water!  If a building is not salvageable upon arrival, the firefighters would then work on preventing a spread to another building while trying to knock down the fire as quickly as possible.

In this particular exercise; the engine pulled up, unloaded and rolled out the hoses while another man hooked into the hydrant–this took a little under two-minutes. Once everyone was in position, they turned the water on and sprayed it into a neighboring field.

For Oakley, the big one would be anything in Downtown Oakley, an older home with lots of wood, the CentroMart Building, or in some of the older neighborhoods with tight roads and limited access for multiple engines.

“Unfortunately, its going to happen at some point or another and we want to be prepared and keep our skills up,” said Captain John Foster. “This is why we train.”

It should be noted, throughout the day, other stations across the District were also training in order to keep their skills sharp and keep response times up.

Here are few photographs of the training–keep in mind, this was a single station simulation.

If there is additional training this week, we will try and make it out.

You may also like