Cooperative Training Project, December 2004
|
|
The Saltillo - Austin training project for December 2004 was hosted by
the City of Austin Fire Training Academy.
Fourteen firefighters, from all ranks and from every station in Saltillo and Ramos Arizpe,
travelled to Austin by van for twenty hours of fire training in just three days.
|
| |
|
|
Wednesday evening. At the welcoming dinner at Trudy's Restaurant, Austin Fire Fighter Vince Serrano
makes plans with the Saltillo firefighters.
The IAFF Local 975, the Sister Cities, ESD #4 and #11,
and firefighters from Austin, Volente, Leander, and Travis County will all pitch in
to make this project a success.
|
|
| |
|
|
Our guests settle into five Austin fire stations, their homes for the next four nights,
where they will eat, sleep, and ride out at night on fire and EMS calls.
The Austin crews welcome their guests, and the chance to practice their conversational Spanish.
|
|
| |
|
|
Thursday morning. Forcible entry is the first subject the students tackle.
You can't put out the fire until you get inside the door.
These realistic training doors are an invention of Austin firefighters and Training Chief Bob Nicks.
|
|
| |
|
|
Next on the schedule is the famous AFD SCBA confidence course,
where students learn to squeeze themselves and their equipment through a simulated collapsed structure.
The AFD instructors were inspired by the spirit and determination of the Saltillo firefighters.
|
|
| |
|
|
Propane tank fires round out the training for the first day.
Propane is widely used in Mexico, and propane leaks and fires account for a majority of
the emergencies handled by the Saltillo Fire Department.
|
|
| |
|
|
Friday Morning starts in an empty building at the airport, where students practice oriented and
wide-area search techniques. All Austin firefighters have recently completed these courses.
|
|
| |
|
|
Back in the classroom, the students receive a lecture on flashover,
an explosion of flame that may be encountered in any burning structure,
and a deadly killer of firefighters.
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
In the Flashover Chamber, students experience the deadly phenomenon and learn to spot its warning signs.
|
|
| |
|
Austin Firefighters share their dinner wagons with the visitors after a long day of training.
We hope that the friendships forged at the stations will result in more cooperative training
for both departments.
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Saturday morning. The final exercise.
Four companies of combined Saltillo and Austin Firefighters attack a structure fire,
using everything they have learned and practiced together.
|
|
| |
|
|
Mission Accomplished! Twenty hours of intensive firefighting theory and practice in two and a half days.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Time to relax.
Austin Saltillo Sister Cities hosts a tex-mex dinner, the Saltillans visit the Zilker Tree,
then its Central Fire Station and a stroll down famous Sixth Street.
|
|
