BOZEMAN — I tagged along with the Bozeman Fire Department to see what goes into a live fire training.
"This is a daunting task—to put on ‘Live Fire 1403’ properly and safely," says Steven Thime, training officer for Bozeman Fire.
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As a firefighter of 29 years, he says training in live fire is a rare but risky task.
"We train in-house, long before coming out here and doing these trainings out here," says Thime.
Crews go through many computer simulations in a safe environment before ever training with live fire.
"This is just one small part of the training that we do at Bozeman Fire. Well over 250 hours a year is what all our firefighters do," says Thime.
In addition to daily training, the department has monthly performance standards they must meet.
Thime says, "In January we did ice rescue, February is live fire, March—we already have that lesson planned rolled out—is wildland fire. So, we’ll be doing real-life wildland scenarios next month."
The scenario firefighters are training with today is a residential structure fire.
"We dispatch the company and then they arrive on scene. We start with forcing a door—like they would if they needed to get into a structure they can’t get into. And then we set them up in a training building with live fire. We are not allowed to have live victims inside, but we do have mannequins spread throughout the building to rescue."
According to Thime, fire rates are low in Bozeman, which is great news for citizens and taxpayers, but makes live fire scenarios even more important for training.
"So, when we do things like this, it is very high risk but low frequency. That’s why it’s important that we do things like this and make them as realistic as possible," he says.
