Bedford Hosts Training Exercise To Better Prepare Area Firefighters

BEDFORD, NH — The Bedford Fire Department, in coordination with multiple area fire departments, held a training exercise with live burns at 99 McAllister Road on Saturday.

The family, who owned the house, had plans to demolish it while using the land will in the future. The owners coordinated with the department to allow them to have access to the building for the training.

About 65 firefighters from Bedford, Merrimack, Manchester, Londonderry, New Boston, Litchfield, Goffstown, and Amherst participated in the training. The training exercise took months to plan — including removing environmental hazards and having significant safety protocols in place started early in the day with a walk-thru of the old farmhouse that had several additions built over the years.

Firefighters completed several training evolutions allowing them to train for search and rescue, and experience intense smoke conditions and extreme temperatures in rooms that had an actual fire. Temperatures in the rooms can reach intense temperatures of nearly 1,000 degrees that firefighters will face when at an actual building fire.

In the early afternoon, after more than a dozen training exercises, the building became an inferno and was controlled by crews using water streams from a ladder truck and firefighters using hoses surrounding the area.

Crews located a short distance away worked to establish and maintain water supply throughout the day. EMS stood by during the training but was not needed for any medical issues.

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©Jeffrey Hastings www.frameofmindphoto.com/news