The New Ipswich Fire Department got hands-on training as crews had the opportunity to observe and fight a controlled burn of a donated property on Poor Farm Road on Saturday.
The fire department has actually been making use of the property for various training exercises for the past five months, New Ipswich Fire Chief Meredith Lund said in an interview Tuesday.
Lund said Scott Honkala, who owns the Poor Farm property, approached her after witnessing another training burn earlier this year, on Turnpike Road, and offered to allow them to use the two-story house on 221 Poor Farm Road for further training, as he was planning on demolishing the building already.
Lund said the fire department is offered such properties from time to time, but it’s unusual to have two such opportunities in a year. And it’s a big plus for the department, she said.
“The training is invaluable because we can mimic a real-life situation in a secure environment,” Lund said.
They can control things like having sufficient instructors on the ground and a pre-established connection to a water supply, but training on real houses gives firefighters the opportunity to observe how a fire would move through the environment.
“We can see what fire’s going to do in crawl spaces, under staircases, or when it gets inside a wall,” Lund said. “We’ll have a better understanding of what the fire’s going to do.”
Over the summer, the crew used the house for training such as hauling hoses upstairs, cutting into the roof to search for fire, and other drills they only have limited opportunities for, because they might cause damage to the home. On Saturday, they burned the building, using the opportunity to observe fire behavior and do fire entry and search drills.
Ashley Saari can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.