The Ames Fire Department hosted a training event in repurposed shipping containers Sunday on behalf of the State Training Bureau, featuring students from across the state along with national-level instructors. 

The Ames Fire Department serves over 30,000 Iowa State University students along with over 30,000 permanent Ames area residents. The training was from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m Sunday.

A.J. Plach, a fire training officer with the Ames Fire Department, said the training is done in shipping containers that are set up to help repetition of skills. They focus on what is valuable in local scenarios including ladder work, hose line work and basement rescue training.

“It still is testing their physical ability that they have the right stamina and the right strength to complete the skills,” Plach said. “It more mimics what we do as a fire department.”

According to firefighters that participated in the training, the Ames Fire Department has been a model organization for other fire departments in Iowa, with a consensus among the firefighters that training based on real world scenarios is more beneficial than the previous use of substantial paper testing.

“Everything will play as one on a fire scene where these situations go hand in hand,” said Jake Winkler of the Creston Fire Department. “To get your hands on it is the only way to learn how to do it and how your body reacts to it.”

About the training

The firefighters exercised different skill sets to respond to fire calls including:

• Vent Enter and Search (VES) Training 
  • Firefighters use a ladder to reach a window then break it to enter the mock-fire.

• Primary Search 
  • Primary search is focused on living rooms, kitchens and first floor rooms where they enter through the front door.

• Forcible Entry
  • A mock door was locked and the firefighters took turns breaking into and using different tools and body weight to efficiently overcome it.

The skills are then combined for practice at higher-level scenarios.

Budget increase

During the city’s budget hearings, the Ames Fire Department proposed a 3.5% budget increase at a February Ames City Council meeting. The increase will go toward many things in the department including wage increase, personnel costs and training budget. It supported the consumables they use for training like the one hosted on Sunday.

“There’s not a lot of agencies in the state that have this, and it has become a trend that people want this in their community,” Plach said. “It is very fiscally responsible.” 

Plach said the containers used for training would usually cost over $250,000 from a manufacturer, but with the investment the department has put into the containers, they have only spent around $30,000.

A new refurbished fire truck will also be returning soon. Plach said it is expected to be usable in May or June and will come back as a reserve aerial, making it the second aerial truck the Ames Fire Department has at its disposal.

Testing

The Ames Fire Department made a change in testing for the firefighters to focus more on real world training events that will help to show what could potentially happen on the job. 

“It’s good; it definitely mimics the way a firefighter would perform their duties at the scene, going from climbing an aerial ladder to raising ladders to pulling a dummy or a hoseline,” Plach said. “It is a lot of skills that relate to what they are doing.”

Other firefighters that participated in the Sunday training liked the way it put them in real world situations as well.

“These guys really know how to take real world scenarios and help you train for them and put you in front of them,” said Dan Olson of the Cherokee Fire Department. “These trainings here are invaluable.”