Fire recruits learn to take the heat

JOHN BURGESON jburgeson@ctpost.com
Article Last Updated: 02/29/2008 10:54:08 PM EST

Lots of children dream of one day becoming a firefighter.

There's lots to be said for it. Speeding to a burning home in a shiny red truck, its siren wailing, rescuing the desperate residents and spraying water everywhere.

To be sure, that's part of the job. But as with every dream career, there's an underside.

On Friday, the 23 recruits in the Bridgeport Fire Department's latest firefighter class got a taste of some of the less glamorous parts of the job not found in children's books.

The candidates, along with a half-dozen training officers, were at the Fairfield Regional Fire School, one of only two in Connecticut, off One Rod Highway.

"It gives them not as much heat and fire as you would find in a structure fire, but it's enough to get the recruits used to what a real fire is like," said Lt. David Acanfora, one of the Bridgeport Fire Department's training officers.

The slogan of the facility is "You Fight the Way You Train," and it occupies a concrete-and-cement block, four-story tower built to simulate a variety of firefighting scenarios. There are windows, doors, a peaked roof and a flat roof.

Acanfora said that for Friday's exercise, a fire was ignited on the first floor using bales of hay, old wooden pallets, paper and cardboard. "In a real fire, there would be burning plastics and accelerants like gasoline to worry about, but we do have neighbors here," he said.

The first obstacle facing the recruits was getting through the door. It wasn't like it is in the movies, where a swift kick opens it on cue. The training center's door is made of steel, and it was putting up quite a fight.

"When you're fighting a fire in a high-crime area, the door isn't always an easy entry," Acanfora said. If we can't get through the door, we have to go to Plan B — the window."

The door finally yielded after a few precious minutes of punishment from a variety of firefighting tools. Then it was time for the recruits to haul heavy hoses to the second floor and fight the fire from above.

"We're simulating a basement fire here," Acanfora said. "When you open the door to a real basement fire, you're going to get heat and toxic gas."

Emergency workers always have a lot of heavy gear to haul, and firefighters have more than most. The basic outfit — the so-called "turnout gear" of coat and trousers, along with boots and helmet — weighs at least 20 pounds. Another 30 pounds is added for the air tank, mask and other equipment.

The breathing equipment, called SCBA for Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus, consists of a small fiberglass air tank, mask, regulator and harness, that provides 30 minutes of air under ideal conditions. "With the rate of exertion and heat you have when you're fighting a fire, that could be as little as 10 minutes," Acanfora said. The tanks are filled with compressed atmospheric air, not oxygen.

Once the recruits got the hoses in place, the extinguishing operation was over in a minute or so, thanks to the 1,000-gallon-per-minute flow from the pumper — one of Bridgeport's spare engines that had been retired for training operations. Torrents of water flowed from the ground floor door and gray smoke billowed out of the windows.

One of the trainees, David Lenart, 29, of Derby, said that part of the day's exercise was to show the recruits how to preserve as much evidence as possible. "Fires are often crime scenes, too, and we're the first eyes on the scene," he said.

Recruit Tony Greene, 39, of Stratford, said that for him, one unexpected aspect of the training has been the demanding classroom instruction.

"It was like going to college," he said. "But the training has been really good. We had veteran firefighters come in from Hartford and New York City who shared with us some of the tricks of the trade."

This class of would-be firefighters began in early December with 29 students. Twenty-three remain, and those who successfully complete the rest of the training will graduate in mid-April. They will fill posts in the Bridgeport Fire Department left vacant by recent retirements and promotions.

A new firefighter in the city is paid a starting salary of about $40,000 and is on probation for a year. There are 310 men and women in the department.

To gain experience, they will be assigned to both engine and ladder companies for the first few months, learning how to use all of the tools and dealing with things like night shifts, living in close quarters with fellow firefighters and even making scrambled eggs for their buddies.

"We're not trying to wash people out," Acanfora said of the challenging training for the recruits. "Our goal as training officers is to get everyone through."

Still, he said, many in training soon realize that the thrill of racing through the streets in a shiny red truck and rescuing people doesn't outweigh the job's downsides — coiling hoses, hauling heavy gear up long flights of stairs, standing in boots full of freezing water and breathing smoke.