House torched for firefighter training
Lower Moutere man Alan Chambers watched his family home go up in smoke, but it wasn’t by accident.
The three bedroom run-down farm house off Main Road was donated to fire services to use for the ‘‘best, realistic’’ training available.
Motueka chief fire officer Mike Riddell said 40 firefighters used seven fire trucks for the rare opportunity to learn to control and understand house fires.
Teams lit fires with a blowtorch and house-hold furniture in every room.
They continued to extinguish the blazes over a four hour period for internal training before allowing the home to burn to the ground with volunteer fire fighters controlling the blaze from the outside.
‘‘We watch the whole process from start to finish and we train them to control it,’’ Riddell said.
As the flames licked the roof of the house, engulfed in fire, Riddell said it would be up to 1000 degrees Celsius inside and impossible for a fire fighter to enter and survive.
Ian Reade from Waimea Rural Fire Service said the eight volunteer firefighters who attended were also able to enhance their skills by controlling a fire from the outside of dwelling, using minimum water resources.
Luka Droppers began volunteering eight-months-ago. Now aged 18, he said the opportunity to learn hands on was invaluable.
‘‘We’ve never been to a house fire before. We learnt all the basics. I’ve done all the forest fire training but not the house fire training.’’
He said he was not surprised by how quickly a house fire caught on, but was by how easily a fire fighter could control it, given it was caught in time.
Droppers said the teams learnt how to use fire fighting equipment to its full potential.
Chambers, the home owner, said the house was ‘‘beyond its used by date’’ and would allow him to clear the property to make way for the future.
‘‘They’d get as much as experience from the one house today than they would in three or four years [fire fighting],’’ he said.
‘‘It’s our old family home. No one has been living in there for over five years.’’
His grandchildren said they were sad for their grandfather but enjoyed watching the exercise from the roadside.