The Berne/East Berne fire departments conducted training with Onesquethaw and Westerlo fire departments on Monday, July 25th, on search and rescue for victims inside of structure fires.

The Albany County Sheriff’s Office mobile fire training trailer was used to simulate the fire conditions for firefighters to train. The trailer is set up to simulate a house, complete with a kitchen, bathroom and even stairs that go up and then down into the “basement” with other obstacles for firefighters to navigate.

The training trailer has simulated fire where firefighters use a special nozzle with a laser on the end that extinguishes the simulated fire. The trailer also has fog machines that can be set to different levels that put out various amounts of fog to simulate smoke conditions inside a fire.

Firefighters started this training by forcing open the front door with a crew going in for fire suppression, while another searched for victims. The training progressed and the victims became harder to find with increasing levels of smoke and making fire crews breach through the wall to get through.

This training trailer benefits many departments who don’t have access to their own fire training facilities.