Fire students from Conestoga College had the rare opportunity to witness a house burn in a controlled setting on Apr. 13 as Wellesley fire crews razed it to the ground. The house, located at 3438 Weimar Line, had been donated to the fire department earlier this year.
“The current owner purchased the property and were planning on redeveloping the site and they had taken out a demolition permit on the house,” said Wellesley fire chief Andrew Lillico.
“It was basically a donation of the building for the purposes of training.”
A thick plume of smoke rose to the sky around 10:30 a.m. Apr. 13 and was visible as far away as St. Jacobs as about 25 students from the college participated in a range of training exercises, from water relay exercises to the application of water and the affects of various fire attack techniques.
At no time, however, were students or fire crews permitted inside the building while it burned.
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“We follow National Fire Protection Association Standards, which prohibit us [from entering],” said Lillico. “If we want to do interior firefighting scenarios we would do that at the training centre, which is a more controlled environment.”
The fire raged for more than two hours as training officers from the college took students through various scenarios on how to attack a fire, where to spray water for the greatest affect, how to safely climb to the roof and combat a fire on the second storey, and how to operate manual water relays from a pond some 1,300 feet away – a reality in rural firefighting with no access to municipal water supplies or hydrants.
“I think the students were very impressed,” Lillico said.
The fire was also the final stage of training in the home that had been used by the fire department for exercises since early March. Lillico said his own volunteers had been practicing ventilation tactics, search-and-rescue and self-rescue exercises, as well as aerial operations and water supply and tanker operations for the past six weeks or so.
Before the fire they also ensured all utilities had been disconnected and that there were no hazards left inside the building.
The opportunity to practice on a real structure is a rare one, as many homes that owners wish to donate to the fire department simply aren’t in good enough condition.
“It can’t be in such a state of decay that there is no value to it,” the fire chief explained.
A couple of hours after it all began, fire crews used the aerial ladder truck to extinguish what was left of the flames and a backhoe was on the scene for cleanup.
For the dozens of passing motorists that stopped to watch it must have been an odd scene watching dozens of fire fighters watch a building burn to the ground.
“This was more […] to observe the fire rather than to see if you can physically put this fire out,” said Lillico.
“It was never our intent to extinguish the fire.”
