Firefighter recruits learn their trade
After four months of training, they’re ready to fight a working fire: instructor
A small cluster of fire recruits stands grouped together taking turns gripping the fire hose, dosing the towering flames in front of them with pressurized foam and water.
Every 15 seconds or so one of them wiggles their hips, something I interpret as an odd show of excitement, until it is explained to me later.
It’s Friday morning and Edmonton Fire and Rescue Service’s spring group of 30 fire recruits is now three weeks away from completing their 16-week training program.
With about three quarters of the gruelling program devoted to hands-on training, instructor Cory Ruthberg said it’s designed to prepare the recruits for anything and everything.
“We can get them to the point where if their very first call when they hit the floor is a working fire, they are good to go,” said Ruthberg.
It’s not until I’m suited up — boots, pants, jacket, gloves, balaclava, oxygen mask and tank, and helmet — that I realize how perfectly trained these recruits need to be.
Walking across the training ground feels tiring, never mind fighting an hours-long fire.
It is also at this point that I learn the male fire recruits age 20 to 30 were not in fact wiggling their hips just for the fun of it — once suited up, if you don’t move often enough a small alarm will go off to notify the team that you may be in trouble.
Soon, I too am performing the awkward dance move.
The facility, at 18711 106a Ave., has a wide variety of training objects, from vehicles to trees to a giant concrete building, all replicating real-world situations.
The safety and ease of these drills has increased greatly in about the last four years since the fire training centre transitioned to using propane to fuel the fires, which can be switched on and off easily.
The concrete training tower has a multitude of heavy metal shutters that can be opened to reveal any number of fire situations for the recruits to tackle. Incredibly, the fires within this building are entirely remote controlled.
As I approach one end of the building, breathing in cool air through my mask and dragging the fire hose, one of the training instructors pushes a button on his controller causing a small fire to leap up in front of me.
I secure the hose under my right arm, wiggle my hips, and release the flood of water onto the flames.
After barely a half-hour of “training,” I peel the multiple layers of equipment off my body with an entirely new appreciation for the work firefighters do in this city.