Crews attended the former nursing home to complete a full response scenario on Nov 18 2020.
In this scenario, crews were dispatched to reports of an automatic fire alarm activation. Upon arrival crews were met with visible signs of smoke and fire emanating from ‘C’ wing. Crews quickly made an aggressive interior attack on side bravo into the ‘C’ wing hallway and extinguished the fire. Search crews then entered the building to clear it of any occupants.
In the meantime, it was discovered that there was also a hidden generator fire in a detached structure. Crews forced entry into the outbuilding and made a quick attack on the fire as well as a simultaneous victim rescue.
Crews then laddered the structure to extinguish a small roof fire.
Further searches of the surrounding outbuildings garnished positive results, when a homeless mother and infant were found living in a storage container on the site. They were unable to leave the container due to the heavy smoke blocking their exit.
Upon completing fire attack and searches, crews transitioned to ventilation and overhaul. During this phase, one member suffered a cardiac event while on the interior, a mayday was called and interior crews rapidly extracted the member while RIT was making entry. The firefighter was subsequently worked on by fellow firefighters and arriving EMS personnel and was successfully resuscitated.
Training scenarios like this enable our crews to test their skills, team work, and knowledge. The ability for our department to conduct these operations cannot be understated. Each successive scenario builds our young crew and helps keep us on the forefront of incident mitigation. The Mattawa Fire Department wishes to thank the Town of Mattawa for the generous use of this facility.
