PORT ANGELES — Firefighters felt the heat over the weekend as they trained in a house on Garling Road that was donated to Clallam County Fire District No. 2.
“This gives us the opportunity to see real fire inside a real structure and see how it behaves, and the crews get a good experience pulling attack lines and going in to put out the fire,” said Jake Patterson, deputy chief of operations for Fire District No. 2.
Firefighters took turns in attack teams as they extinguished fires Saturday in the two burn cells that were set up inside the building.
The rooms were reinforced with an extra layer of drywall to help the building survive as firefighters burned pallets and straw.
Flames shoot out of the home on Garling Road that was used for fire training. (Jesse Major/Peninsula Daily News)
A thermal imaging camera showed temperatures inside the home climbing past 300 degrees, which is much cooler than the fires firefighters are prepared to respond to, Patterson said.
“Once you hit about 600 degrees, our gear gets limited,” he said.
For the training, firefighters were only allowed to burn natural materials. This means there was no carpet, plastics, couches, or any other materials that quickly fuel the fires firefighters encounter while on a real call.
“The rooms heat up quicker and they reach a flash over point where everything in the room reaches ignition temperature,” he said. “With synthetic materials, that’s about five minutes.”
He said black smoke fills the room, making it difficult to see.
Nevertheless, it was difficult for firefighters to see in the unlit house while they were training. Though the fires were controlled, smoke filled the house and limited their sight.
Firefighters prepare to set a fire in a house on Garling Road used for fire training. (Jesse Major/Peninsula Daily News)
Smoke made it difficult to see anything but the glow of the fire, and firefighters’ masks fogged as they put water on the flames.
Teams attacked fires in the house for several hours before letting the entire building burn.
Zacharias Gaillard, who said his parents owned the home, said his family was happy to donate the home to a good cause after Clallam County made it clear the building couldn’t stay.
He said Clallam County “wanted it to come down,” and that despite his family’s efforts to save the house his family built in the 1990s, the building needed to go.
His family “just wanted the community to know they built this structure with their bare hands and they tried to save it,” he said. “We thought the best thing would be to donate it to the community to provide this training.”
A firefighter breaks through a wall in a house used for fire training. (Jesse Major/Peninsula Daily News)
Though the house wasn’t up to the county’s requirements, it was more than what the firefighters needed for their training.
Patterson said most houses that are donated to the fire district are not in nearly as good of condition.
After several burns, firefighters checked to make sure that the fire hadn’t spread at all into the walls or ceiling and that it was still structurally sound.
Though much of the training finished at about noon, Patterson said the building could have survived much more.
“Normally the houses we burn are in pretty bad shape, but this house is in really good shape,” Patterson said. “It’s a safe environment, which we appreciate. It’s a good training environment.”
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Reporter Jesse Major can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56250, or at jmajor@peninsuladailynews.com.
A firefighter tears through the ceiling of a house on Garling Road that was used for fire training. (Jesse Major/Peninsula Daily News)