Burning down the house

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class James Bolinger
  • 436th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. --  More than 395,000 homes went up in flames in the U. S. in 2004. However, firefighters don't get to train daily on a burning house to practice extinguishing it. Instead, they must wait until a fire actually happens. That can change on the rare occasion a department gets to burn a building down on purpose.

From Feb 20 - 23 the base fire department torched different rooms inside of Building 480, near the Landings Club, to refresh firefighters on building-entry tactics and blaze-extinguishing methods.

First, the members stocked each room with pallets and mattresses to simulate furniture as well as hay to ignite the flames quickly.

Then they suited up with fire protection gear, went through a safety briefing and two members entered the building, struck a match and poof - firefighters got to train without anyone getting hurt or loosing valuable base facilities.

The last time the department got to practice on a building was in May 2002 when they burned Building 482 to the ground.

More than 100 firefighters from both military and civilian departments around Delaware trained at the site throughout the week.

"We had 60 firefighters from civilian departments around the state, and more the 50 from our station here," said Joe Mriss, 436th Civil Engineer Squadron Fire Department assistant chief of operations.

Dover has 10 mutual-aid agreements with local fire stations throughout Delaware.

Six of those stations showed up to train at Building 480, said Mr. Mriss.

When firefighters go to their technical school they learn to put out propane fire in a concrete building, said Senior Master Sgt. Dwright Davis, 436th CES Fire Department fire chief. When they get to practice on a wooden structure it adds a whole lot of realism.

"The fire is more intense - unlike propane which can be turned off, these flames must be put out by the member," he said.

The six civilian departments that trained here Feb. 23 were from the cities of Dover, Felton, Hartly, Marydel, North Bowers, Camden and Wyoming. Each department sent approximately 10 firefighters to the building burn.

Three of these departments will be helping the base department torch Building 480 Sunday. The fire department plans to burn it completely to the ground with the help of the cities' fire departments.

"This will give Airmen the big picture - if we don't get there quickly this is what can happen," said Sergeant Davis.

They can see the three phases a fire goes through as it consumes a building: incipient, smoldering and free burn, he added.

Incipient is when the fire first lights, it uses up all of the available oxygen and moves to the second stage, smoldering. Smoldering is when the blaze is waiting to steal more oxygen from somewhere else and then it becomes a free burn. The free-burn stage is when the fire actually begins consuming the building.

"In this case it may skip the smoldering phase," said Sergeant Davis. "(Building 480) is so full of holes that it shouldn't have any trouble getting oxygen when we burn it all the way down"

According to Sergeant Davis, the final burn should take three to four hours.

"It will still be a controlled burn, though," he said. "We're not going to let it burn the building next to it."

Through this kind of training, Dover's fire department adds itself to the list of base units who have a close working relationship with their civilian counterparts.