BOWDOIN

Thickening streams of smoke rolled from the rear window of an old farmhouse. Then a blast of water burst through the window, ending it.

Firefighters in full gear held hose lines by the front door, intermittently entering the smoke and flame-filled building with a hose in teams.

Don’t be fooled, though. The fire on this sunny morning on West Road in Bowdoin was just for practice. It involved setting a series of fires in various parts of the old farmhouse, which the owner let the fire department burn rather than having it demolished. The Bowdoin Fire Department invited Litchfield, Bowdoinham and Richmond departments to join in the morning training on March 11.

Jerry Brown, Bowdoin’s deputy chief, was one of the interior trainers during the practice burn. The trainers used barricades to act as furniture in the otherwise empty house, he said, so when the attack teams went in, “they didn’t have a direct shot at the fire. They actually had to bounce water off of walls or the ceiling, or work around something.”

Without a challenge, the firefighters won’t learn anything, Brown explained. “As soon as you hit the fire with the hose, you get the steam and it messes up the thermal balance, and then you can’t see anything and then it becomes a new challenge.”

Before new firefighters go into a training burn, “They get theory training on fire behavior and fire attack, and of course they have to be air pack-certified,” Brown said. The firefighters in training have a fitting to ensure the mask fits and seals correctly, and then they are taught all the components of their air pack. Normally they run through a couple bottles of air, both under stress and under no stress so they become familiar with and trust the equipment.

“As soon as this stuff happens, your heart rate comes up and your breathing comes up so, along with everything else that’s going on, you have to concentrate on controlling your breathing and slowing it down,” Brown said. “That’s what this training is about, so when it happens for real and you’re going in, you do some of this stuff automatically,” so you can concentrate on putting out the fire.

“It’s an unsafe job but you try to do it as safely as you can do it, and you bring everybody home that you started with, and you do what you do to save the occupants or the structure or the surrounding properties,” Brown said.

Bowdoin Fire Chief Tom Garrepy said this particular training allowed for six evolutions. An evolution refers to when an attack team — one “nozzle-man” and three firefighters in support — goes in and knocks down the seat of the fire to keep it from spreading.

“The great part of this is the guys who went in, I presume, saw some pretty good fire behavior inside as well. They can go in and just take a moment before putting the fire out — especially when you’ve got experienced guys in there who know when the fire needs to be put out — and some of the newer members can see exactly how the fire acts when it’s rolling across the ceiling or something like that,” Garrepy said. “And they experience the heat.”

Currently, Garrepy said the number of firefighters in the volunteer department is down. During weekdays there may only be a few firefighters in town, so between the hours of 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, Richmond and Bowdoinham departments are automatically dispatched to Bowdoin and the same is the case for Richmond and Bowdoinham calls. This has allowed the Bowdoin fire department to get more manpower on the road, he said, and has improved response times.

“It helps build bridges,” Garrepy said, calling up the old adage, “It’s always easier to start the trucks and turn them around, than to get them started too late.”

Garrepy believes many people don’t really know what firefighters do or the training that goes into being a volunteer firefighter.

“There are so many different roles in the fire service,” Garrepy said. “There’s a job for everybody that wants to come here. We provide all of the training and all of the gear. You don’t have to be an interior structural firefighter. You can be an EMT; you can be a truck driver; you can be a pump operator.”

Bowdoin also has a junior program for ages 14 to 18, which Brown said has three members, allowing the department to train the next generation of firefighters.

Dispatchers on scene

Invited to observe the practice burn March 11 were three local emergency dispatchers who are an essential part of any emergency response in Sagadahoc County. Watching the drill was Tammy Shiers, a dispatch supervisor at the Sagadahoc County Communications Center, accompanied by the center’s two newest dispatchers, Shaun Kavanaugh and Rebecca Blier.

“We’ve always tried to be able to come and do one of these burns, so we know both sides,” Shiers said. “We know on our end what they’re doing and what they’re asking for; and if they can’t answer, why they can’t answer.”

Shiers said part of their law enforcement dispatch training involves spending time riding in police cruisers and going to calls. Coming to the training burn let them meet the firefighters so they’re “not just a face on the other end…. The chief can call in and he knows who I am. I think it ends up being a better relationship.”

Kavanaugh said the scene of the practice burn for the most part was what he expected. “It’s good to see though, just to see what they go through and if we call them on the radio and they don’t hear us, we know why, because they’ve got a lot going on.”

There are at least three dispatchers on at a time at the communications center, Shiers said, and each station has different responsibilities, including a designated fire station, police station and a Topsham station. The dispatchers work together particularly if there is a large-scale incident, but when a large structure fire hits, for example, the other calls don’t stop. Dispatchers have six different radio frequencies to monitor.

According to Shiers, dispatchers need to be Emergency Medical Dispatch Certified, requiring them to have a license with the state of Maine and a certification through the National Academies of Emergency Dispatch. With all the requirements now, Shiers said it takes four to five months before a dispatcher is ready to sit at the desk by themselves.

“The hardest thing is, you can’t train somebody on how to answer every question,” Shiers said. “You don’t know what people are going to call in and ask, so you try and give them the best experience. We always have a certified trainer with a dispatcher.”

Since he started in July 2010, Kavanaugh said, “I still get new stuff everyday. It changes everyday.”

Blier, a dispatcher for Sagadahoc County Communications Center since July 2011, admitted that when she first started dispatching, “I was deathly afraid of it,” but once you realize you have three other people to help and support you, “it gets a lot better.” Now she characterizes her job as “awesome,” and says it lets her make an impact in a way most people never will get to.

Watching the practice burn let her see what the firefighters do from their perspective and also meet them. “It creates a better camaraderie when they call in…. It’s not just a number you’re throwing into a fire, it’s an actual person that you’ve met.”

The 21-year-old entered the world of dispatch fresh out of college. As the mother of a 3- year-old girl, “I’m her single parent and I wanted to do something that she was going to be able to look up to, and this is pretty much what I wanted to do my whole life, is something that helps, and serves a purpose,” Blier said.