Crime & Safety

Fire Drill Brings Out the Neighbors

First responders simulate residential blaze

A Wyckoff Fire Department drill Monday night became a neighborhood meeting as residents crowded around 323 Calvin Court to watch the first responders simulate a house fire.

Residents, some with beer in hand, took pictures and kids gawked in wide-eyed wonder as the firefighters and Wyckoff Volunteer Ambulance Corps worked for almost two hours on an elaborate drill that brought members of all three fire companies and several pumper trucks to the block off Cedar Hill Avenue. 

Passersby can be excused if they were alarmed. While the drill was carefully planned, the result had all the characteristics of a true emergency. The road was blocked off, smoke spilled from the vacant house, firefighters and ambulance corps members kept in constant contact on the radio and a live hydrant was tapped to douse the "fire."

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Fire Chief David Murphy said the drill was "great hands-on training" where they "max it out.

"We take it very seriously. People's lives could be at stake," Murphy said.

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He explained that the department's goal was to simulate the exact conditions that they will find on a true call, so that when it happens, "you go right back to what you're taught."

As the result of such drills, firefighters and EMS workers will know "what it's going to feel like in reality."

The home, 323 Calvin Court, has been sold and is scheduled to be torn down. As such, the department was free to do its worst, once they filed an insurance liability claim, of course.

The department certainly can't start its own fire, but it did use a smoke machine to simulate the effects of one. A fire engine basket also was used to hoist firefighters to the roof, which they cut open to practice extricating victims.

Once the habitants of the home (plastic dummies) were removed from the residence, the ambulance corps members immediately responded to get them secured and on the ambulance.

Murphy said the department had more opportunities to practice structure fire responses during the building boom of a few years ago, when more homes were being torn down. Regardless, the department conducts drills of some sort every Monday night, even if they're just sit-down lessons.


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