Wildland fires, brush fires, woodland fires, wilderness fires, or whatever you may call them by have been a growing concern and problem for our area. If you checked out our Brush Fire Safety article, you can see that these fires are often manmade and are growing in both size and number yearly. Our department has been placing a large amount of resources and training towards being better prepared and more effective at fighting these fires. As of this training day, wildland fires have already overtaken all other types of calls for our most frequent event this year.
Pond Hill-Lily Lake Fire Company was accompanied by Slocum Township Fire Company for a live burn training drill to practice techniques and test equipment for this fire season. The burn was a multiple acre burn that was completed in sections while teams focused on certain skills for each section. Members were instructed to build a dry fire line, which is essentially a line of uncovered dirt that will prevent the fire from crossing due to lack of fuel, and a wet fire line which in a line of watered down fuel that will prevent the fire from crossing due to the fuel being too wet to burn. Both of these fire lines have advantages and limitations that require the use of both on larger fires. A large focus of this training was to promote firefighter safety be reinforcing the concepts of “fighting from the black” while maintaining weather and situational awareness.
After the training crews went over Slocum’s new brush utility unit that they are putting into service this year.
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