NON-EMERGENCY (815) 286-7711
ONE OF THE POSTS
A post from Hinckley Fire
Training
04/29/2022
How the members of HFPD are trained? Are members required to have prior experience in the fire-service before joining?
No. We do not require our members to have previous experience in the fire service, we just ask that everyone is willing to put in the effort to learn and work to help others do the same. Our willingness to train entry level firefighters allows us to acquire more members willing to provide a vital community service. "Neighbors helping neighbors"! We put great effort into training our members on how to help the community and how to do so safely.
Our training currently occurs on the first, third, and fourth Tuesday of every month with our Member's Business Meeting occurring on the second Tuesday of the month. During our training nights we focus on learning new tactics, cross-training on existing tactics, and performing repetitions for practice. HFPD responds to a multitude of emergencies that our community can encounter, many of which are a subset of our primary EMS, Rescue, and Fire services. Therefore, it is crucial that we perform training scenarios and are ready for anything.
- Structure Fires
- Field Fires
- Brush Fires
- CO Alarm Response
- Gas leaks
- General EMS incidents
- Falls
- Car Accidents
- Mass Casualty Incidents
The short clips below are from the training that we had in April 2022. During this training, our primary focus was to practice pulling the "Skid Load" from the rear of our primary engine, pressurizing the line, and establishing a water supply from a hydrant. We did multiple evolutions of this scenario to allow members to rotate in and out of the engineer, company officer, nozzle, and back-up positions. The objective was to allow each member to practice each position and familiarize themselves with the tools and methods used for this specific method of attack.
Pulling Skid Load
In this clip you'll see firefighters pull the skid load off of the rear of our primary engine 1805.
This hose load includes 600 ft. of 3 in. diameter hose that is preconnected to a pack that has a gated wye attached to 150 ft. of 1 3/4 in. hose.
The hose pack is pulled off of the engine with one length of 3 in. hose and flaked out as the engineer connects the hose to the rear discharge of the engine.
After the line is connected and flaked out, the nozzle, and backup positions proceed to the nozzle and signal for water. The engineer then sends water from the onboard 1,000 gallon tank for them to use.
After the engineer sends the tank water to the nozzle, he will leave the pump panel momentarily to establish a water supply from a portable water tank or fire hydrant.
Tapping & Dressing Hydrant
In this clip you see the engineer carry the "hydrant bag" (with tools and adapters) to the hydrant, stretch the intake line, and "tap" the hydrant.
First the hydrant is flushed to remove any debris from the hydrant barrel. Sometimes there are debris is fire hydrants from the water main or from people placing objects inside. These debris can damage the pump on a fire engine.
Second, in no particular order, a gate valve is placed on a secondary discharge of the hydrant and the large diameter feed line is attached. The gate valve is in place for an additional water source that can be established without first turning the hydrant off.
Lastly, the hydrant is turned on and water is fed into the engine to fill the tank and feed the attack lines directly.