Over last weekend the Third District Volunteer Fire Company along with several area fire companies participated in live burn drills at the Lower Bucks Safety Training Center.

Fire crews practiced a number of skill building exercises as part of the live burn.

Third District Fire Chief Howard McGoldrick said Tuesday night the training exercises are necessary for fire fighters to continue building on fire skills the crews already have.

“We do the live burns annually and its necessary for some of fire fighters to get in the extra practice because they may have missed responding to actual fires due to work schedule changes for example” he said.

A second benefit, Chief 14 said, is working with other area fire companies at the training facility.

The practice enhances coordination to the point where at a fire, a look or gesture  is sometimes all you need to communicate without all the radio chatter.

“The better the coordination. The faster a fire can be placed” he said, and that’s always the end goal.

A good burn session like the one we did over the weekend  runs for about seven hours and this one was set up like a house fire where crews also perform grid searches for victims with the goal of getting water on fire within two minutes of arriving on scene, McGoldrick said.

The Fire Chief said another aspect of the training is the ability to review helmet cam footage so our guys can improve or resharpen a skill which is done after a live burn.

Helmet cams are a useful tool and is part of the modernization of fire fighting, he said.

The practice burns, he said, save lives and that’s what we’re here for too. 

“We Just to want to add how important it was The Official Croydon Fire Company, Station 11 Newportville Fire Company # 1, Station 12/82 – Bucks County, PA and Falls Township Fire Company #1  joined us for the practice. We really do appreciate working with the other companies.”