Fire District personnel go through an extensive training period to become certified firefighters and/or EMT's. After your initial training as a firefighter you receive additional training twice a month in both structure and wildland fire suppression, rescue, incident command, and fire prevention/education. Some of the training is classroom and some are practical evolutions. The District conducts a live-fire training exercise every summer so all personnel get real-life training in suppressing wildland fires. This includes hose evolutions, burning operations, fire line construction, and apparatus operation. Fire Training is conducted every 2nd and 3rd Thursday of the month at 6:30 pm. EMS training is held every 1st Thursday of the month at 6:30 pm. The State of Oregon mandates minimum amounts of training for both Fire and EMS every year, the average firefighter in Pilot Rock attends about 200 hours of fire training or more their first year with additional training for Medical certification on top of that.
Wildland fires threaten thousands of homes every year across the United States and some of the best suppression techniques for protecting these homes is fighting fire with fire.
Here our firefighters are learning to operate our apparatus that supply the hose lines, operate drip torches for a firing operation, and use of hose lines for suppression and wet line operations.
When conducting a burn out operation, you are removing the fuels from around a structure thus providing much needed defensible space. The desired defensible space for a structure in the wildland urban-interface is minimum 30 feet.
Firefighters for the Pilot Rock Fire District use these types of training opportunities to become more effective at fire suppression while learning about fire behavior and to use tools and equipment safely. Keeping our firefighters safe from harm is our first priority whether training or on the emergency fire ground.