Learning to keep wildfires at bay
San Antonio firefighters are among the first in the nation to test out specialized training
By the time the two San Antonio firefighters, each wearing bright yellow jackets and red fire helmets, arrived at the house, the man was hacking loudly, seemingly unable to breathe.
The firefighters grabbed the man by his arms and helped lead him outside to safety. His picturesque home in a retirement community on the North Side was on fire, albeit an imaginary one.
They were taking part in a simulation to prepare for a real wildfire that could happen one day.
“Obviously, we can’t have the realism of a fire,” Fire Chief Charles Hood said. “But the scenarios that they’re going to pull up to — they don’t know what it will be.”
The simulation was part of new wildfire suppression training that, once refined early next year, will be available to fire departments nationwide. San Antonio firefighters are among the first in the nation to test the training, which is being developed by the International Association of Fire Fighters.
The training comes less than a month after wildfires destroyed huge swaths of California, killing 97 civilians and six firefighters.
Hood said the Camp Fire, which leveled the town of Paradise in Northern California, leading to 85 of the deaths, “has been the biggest fire that any of us has ever seen.”
“So the timing of this is perfect,” he said. “Educating the public and getting our firefighters trained, I think, is critical at this time.”
Wildfire risk isn’t just a West Coast problem anymore. A November report by the U.S. Global
Change Research Program, which publishes a study on the environment every four years, found that the effects of climate change, including a higher risk of wildfires, are starting to be felt across the U.S.
Rick Swan, director of
Wildland Fire Fighting Safety and Response at IAFF, said San Antonio is not immune. A brush fire at Camp Bullis in 2016 consumed about 30 acres and compelled the fire department to put together an evacuation plan for The Dominion, though it was not used.
“A matter of time, weather and a moment,” Swan said about the prospect of a wildfire.
Capt. Brian Stanush, a 25-year veteran of the San Antonio Fire Department, said juniper and cedar on the North Side and mesquite on the South Side could easily ignite.
The department has made it a priority in recent years to educate neighborhoods in areas where homes are built on or near fire-prone land.
In Roseheart, the retirement community where last week’s training exercises were conducted, the fire department has worked alongside residents to clear nearby vegetation and build a 50-foot-wide firebreak,
a gap in the brush to slow or stop the spread of a fire.
Tom Jones, who has lived in Roseheart for more than four years, said the risk of a wildfire is a concern among residents, one that was heightened by the recent California fires.
Jones, chairman of the Roseheart Firewise Committee, part of a national network that helps residents prepare for a wildfire, still remembers a fire he witnessed years ago while living in California that left ash all over Los Angeles Valley.
“There’s always going to be a fuel load,” said Jones, referring to the presence of flammable material. “It makes a lot of sense to be prepared.”
Battling the blaze
For over two years, the International Association of Firefighters, a fire union that, among other goals, aims to improve safety for its members, has worked toward a training course that compiles the best