Groveland Twp.- With more than 30 pounds of gear on her petite five-foot frame, firefighter trainee Bethany Arman paused, nervous to be among the group that would enter and set fire to building.
In training to become a firefighter since October, the Groveland resident and mother of three children had not yet experienced a structure fire. She was anxious about the heated moments ahead.
“All our life we’re taught to run away from fire and I was nervous at first,” said Arman.
Within seconds the century-old Van Road farmhouse was fully engulfed—a perfect day for a fire, said Groveland Township Fire Chief Steve McGee.
On Nov 1, McGee and a team of 29 firefighters that included seven women participated in a practice burn in rural Groveland Township.
Although firefighters often practice in controlled training rooms, working within a controlled burn serves to enhance the firefighters’ ability to overcome the added stresses of heat and uncertainty while searching out victims and fighting fire in a real life situation.
Arman, 39, was one of the first groups to enter the old house.
“I was afraid of the fire, mostly, but felt confident I was with the chief,” she said.
Before setting fire to the donated house the team snaked through abandoned rubble to familiarize themselves with the plan of action. For safety, the firefighters enter in groups.
Accompanied by Chief McGee, the first group ignited the structure in the farthest upper portion of the house.
“It’s a perfect day for this,” Chief McGee told the firefighters in “turnout gear.”
“It’s a clear, high pressure day so the smoke will go straight up. We’ll be able to control where we want this (fire) to go.”
After ignition, the windows were smashed by an outside crew in order to fan the hungry smoke to the inside team to direct and control the flames.
When the upper three rooms were blindingly darkened with suffocating smoke, temperatures rose to over 500 degrees. Arman said the room burst into the V-pattern of flames, both anticipated and predicted by McGee.
“Once I got in there it was cool to see the different layers of smoke and watch the fire crawl up the ceiling toward the oxygen,” she said.
McGee said during practice burns, the fire is started in the highest corner of the structure in order to control where it burns.
The back draft, which did not occur during the training exercise, is the most dangerous for firefighters. The smoldering burn unpredictably flashes, or ignites when the smoking pile is hit with oxygen.
“How long it burns and the ignition temperatures, flashover, or backdraft, depends on what is burning,” McGee said.
Depending on the load or material burning, room temperature can reach 1,200 degrees.
After several minutes of encouraging the blaze, the team killed the flame with a hefty blast of water and all was clear for the next team.
A fire such as the one experienced by Arman and her companions will destroy a house in 10 minutes, said McGee, and would normally warrant water hauling assistance from Brandon, Atlas and Holly township fire departments.
As each of the four teams worked inside the structure, the remaining firefighters took positions outside manning hoses, several tanker engines, and two 3,000-gallon portable Fold-a-Tanks, while EMS personnel monitored vitals on the crew.
Within an hour’s time, the once dilapidated farmhouse was reduced to a smoldering pile of rubble; another successful training session for 29 firefighters laboring under their “turnout gear.”
“It reinforces their leadership and it’s great practice to see what they hadn’t seen before,” said McGee.
“We rely on each other for our lives and without the training there is no way to build the trust—we have the utmost wonderful team…we are team oriented, which you have to be.”