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The Nugget Newspaper
Sisters, Oregon
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Firefighters get live-fire training
By Jim Cornelius

At the touch of a flare, the flames whooshed into the air -- six feet high and roaring.

The air marbled with heat mirage as the ranks of firefighters lined up shoulder to shoulder and flipped the levers on the nozzles of their hoses.

Behind a wide, misty fan of water, the firefighters marched forward slowly, pushing back the flames. Steadily, keeping behind their watery shield, they approached the rust-red pipe apparatus. Flames were sucked into the vortex of the hose nozzles, then curled back, becoming invisible as the wall of water battered the air.

A gloved hand reached out and palmed the wheel of a valve shut-off, spinning the hot metal disc gingerly but quickly, finally closing off the flow of gas to kill the fire.

That scenario played out over and over again on Sunday, June 30, as firefighters from Sisters, Black Butte Ranch and Crooked River Ranch gathered for a live-fire training session administered by Era Horton of the Department of Public Safety Standards & Training division.

According to Sisters Assistant Fire Chief Ken Enoch, the exercise simulates conditions where there is a natural gas pipeline rupture.

For a good many of the firefighters, the training was a first-time experience dealing with one of the most dangerous situations a firefighter can face.

The wall of water shields firefighters as they approach the shut-off valve -- the key to closing off the fuel supplying the hungry flames. The firefighters learned to work as a team to push the flames back far enough to safely reach the shut-off -- in close proximity to blistering hot metal.

To mock-up a scenario in which a truck carrying flammable liquid wrecks on the highway and its contents ignite, a tub of liquid was touched off and the firefighters marched up to it, gradually beating down the flames and turning the nozzles down onto the source of the fire.

This training session, like the burn-to-learn exercises the department conducts when structures are made available, provide invaluable experience for firefighters.

They are able to practice techniques on live fires under controlled circumstances, getting realistic but safe training. They also learn about fire behavior in a way that can never be communicated in a textbook.

Fires of different types have varying characteristics and require firefighters to be well-versed in a range of suppression techniques.

Trainer Horton summed it up: "There's a lot more to fighting fire than putting water on it."

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