By Chris Camire
Lowell Sun (Massachusetts)
Copyright 2007 MediaNews Group, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
WESTFORD, Mass. — Black clouds of velvety smoke spill from the burn trailer. Inside the temperature nears 1,000 degrees.
Dressed in a full fire suit, Billerica Selectman Robert Correnti charges in on his hands and knees. Westford Planning Board member Dennis Galvin follows a few minutes later.
Town officials from Westford and Billerica got a taste of what it’s like to be a firefighter yesterday during a Fire Ops 101 course held at the Rogers Fire Station on Town Farm Road.
Billerica and Westford fire departments organized the event. Its purpose was to show the decision-makers in both towns how important it is that their fire department be properly staffed and equipped.
The day began with a training session. Participants watched a video shot at the Station Nightclub fire in Rhode Island that killed 100 people in 2003. The panic of the crowd is horrifying.
“People just don’t want to believe that this happens today,” said Westford Lt. Jim Barrett. “All this technology, and this still happens. When you arrive at something like this you need to make split second decision of who is going to live and who is going to die.”
After everyone suited up, firefighters simulated the inside of a burning building by lighting a fire inside the burn trailer. Within minutes the trailer, which resembles a red box car, is engulfed in smoke.
As the participants crawl into the inferno, flames whip over their heads. They can only move about two-feet per second.
“The flames were right over me. I felt like I was burning up,” said Billerica Selectman Marc Lombardo. “It just hits home the importance of getting the guys the equipment they need.”
After the burn-trailer exercise, firefighters led the officials through several more drills. They pried the doors off of a green Buick using the “Jaws of Life” spreaders. Then they peeled back the roof like the lid of a sardine can.
Pat Flemming, a member of the Billerica Zoning Board of Appeals, got to test-drive “the tower,” a mechanical crane that can lift a firefighter 100 feet off the ground.
Later, the group entered an old school building with no lights. The mission was to locate a 165-pound mannequin.
Hardly anyone found it. “What an education this was all the way around,” said Flemming. “God bless these (firefighters). When you hear those sirens the boys are working. You know that.”