Arcadia Volunteers Participate in Live Fire Trainig

On Sunday, members from Arcadia Volunteer Fire Company, along with members of Arcadia Junior Fire Company, attended a live fire training exercise. The exercise, hosted by the Chestnut Ridge Volunteers, is a unique and highly valuable training opportunity for all members of the fire service. The process of obtaining a structure is a very in-depth and lengthy one. It starts with a member of the community donating a structure that they no longer want to the local fire company. A safety officer in the fire service must then inspect the structure to make sure there are no imminent dangers to the participants. These guidelines are laid out in depth in the National Fire Protection Agency's (NFPA) standard 1403. This standard was developed with the utmost safety of the firefighter in mind. In 2009, a live fire training burn held in a neighboring jurisdiction was conducted, but did not follow the guidelines of NFPA 1403, and resulted in the death of one firefighter recruit. To prevent this from occurring at this exercise, crews prepared the house to be "safe", and then conducted a safety briefing and walk-through. All in attendance had a positive training experience.