August Wexford VFC Recap

Incidents

Crews prepare to investigate rooftop HVAC units for a fire alarm in Marshall

We finished August with 84 calls to give us 386 total calls for the year. There was one fire-related response that involved an assist in McCandless for a possible fire that turned out to be a contained cooking fire. QRS medical call service started in August and resulted in 16 calls. Crews were also busy with severe weather and storm-related responses with trees down, utility damage, and lightning strikes.

Here is a breakdown of incident totals by major incident type category:

False Alarm & False Call- 17
Fire- 1
Good Intent Call- 22
Hazardous Condition- 5
Rescue- 23
Service Call- 9
Severe Weather- 7

Total-84

Community Outreach

In an ongoing effort to prepare for the new AHN Wexford Hospital, Chief Ausefski and a crew of firefighters tested a fire hose package on the building’s standpipe system. This test helped determine if the hospital’s stationary fire pump was capable of providing adequate volume and pressure to our hose. We hope to never need it, but it was a great chance to ensure that both the hospital and fire company resources are ready to handle a serious fire emergency in the building.

Training

We were given a great training opportunity when a resident offered a house slated for demolition to us for training. Members were to do two training sessions at the house. The first involved advancing hose lines into the house to simulate attacking a fire. This is very valuable training as it provides realistic conditions such as a yard, doorways, hallways, and stairs that we can’t duplicate in our training tower.  The second training session involved moving fire victims to and out of windows. Members were able to practice techniques needed to drag a victim and lift them out onto a firefighter waiting on a ladder.