Tonight, Engine 19 joined us at RVFC to do rescue training. We had a donated vehicle and practiced removing the doors, the roof and pushing the dash. All important skills for helping people trapped in a vehicle.

Tonight E413 and S414 went to Upperco for training on grain bin emergency. A large prop was brought in to simulate someone stuck in a grain bin and the firefighters were taught how to extricate someone from it safely. Many thanks to Upperco for hosting!

We got together with another company and spent an evening doing pumps and hydrant training. Obviously getting water into the engine and then out to the fire is one of the most important aspects for the first in engine company. We practiced setting up the “heavy water hookup” where we get as much water out of the hydrant as possible.

On Sunday September 5, 2021 Engine 413 and Squad 414 participated in an acquired structure burn on Glen Falls Rd. Firefighters from Upperco VFC, Reisterstown VFC, Chestnut Ridge VFC, Hereford VFC, Garrison, Randallstown, and Essex performed live burn evolutions. This training covered interior firefighting, ventilation, and rural water supply.

Last night firefighters from RVFC went down to the BCo Fire Rescue Academy to do flashover training. A flashover happens in a fire when all of the combustible items in a room simultaneously ignite into flames. It is a very dangerous situation for firefighters. The FRA has a flashover simulator so we can learn how to recognize and what to do stop a flashover from happening.

Today, Station 41 and Station 18 met up to train on water hookup, pumping the engines, pumping the ladder pipe and deck gun operations.

Yesterday T18 came up to Station 41 to train on the new Stokes Basket SOP. The stokes basket is the wireframe basket that we use to move injured people from difficult to reach places (e.g., rooftops, down and embankment). BCoFD came out with a new SOP on how to set it up so we spent some time training on it.

Today S414, E412, SU418 and T18 met at Rockdale for rescue training. Rockdale setup a vehicle on its side and another under a box truck. Crews worked with the squad tools, in particular as we have some new tools on there. It was a great time for all.

Many thanks to Rockdale for hosting us.

This past Saturday members trained on the squad. There are numerous new tools that were not on our old squad that we have to get familiar with before it goes in service. Hopefully over the next week or so we will be able to get everyone through to be proficient on the apparatus.

Last night some of the juniors and some of the regular members participated in an air bag training session with one of our senior members. The air bag training went over the high pressure airbags (for example, for lifting a car a little bit) and the medium pressure airbags (for lifting a larger object a higher distance). We had a short class room session and then a longer hands-on session. For the hands-on session we lifted the dumpster off of an egg (without breaking it) and then lifted a car while placing cribbing underneath for protection.