Excerpt from the NYSAFC website:

“It is said that if you’re more than five feet from the doorway, your chance of survival in a flashover is minimal. Working in this program, you’ll experience fire development from the incipient stage all the way to flashover. You’ll be able to identify the signs of the event before you’re part of the flashover. If you’ve never been in a flashover container, this program – staffed by America’s most seasoned instructors with years of experience teaching with a simulator – is a must. The program includes a one-hour classroom lecture, followed by two hours of intense live fire hands-on training evolutions in NYSAFC's mobile flashover simulator.”

The training was hosted by the SLVFD at the Bloomingdale Fire Station. We sincerely appreciate the assistance and the use of the facilities provided by Bloomingdale Volunteer Fire Department. The instructors came from various locations throughout New York State and the approximately 60 students who attended came from multiple departments from throughout Franklin, Essex, Clinton, and Saint Lawrence Counties. 15 SLVFD firefighters went through the training.

NYSAFC’s mobile flashover simulator looks simply like metal containers on a flatbed trailer, but it is designed with a series of vents, doors, and chimneys. Live fire is used to simulate conditions in a controlled environment so that the firefighters inside the containers can experience conditions leading to a flashover. Inside the conditions are intense, hot, and smoky, and flames roll over the firefighter’s heads.

The goal of this training is that if the firefighters can recognize when a flashover is about to happen, they can escape. In the classroom they also learn how improper ventilation can worsen conditions and to ensure ventilation is not freelanced, but is an intentional coordinated effort.

The training was held Saturday and Sunday and 3 groups of approximately 12 firefighters each rotated through the training on each day. In addition to the students and the instructors a cadre of support personnel from the SLVFD, the Bloomingdale VFD, and the Saranac Lake Volunteer Rescue Squad were on hand all weekend to support the event.

As we say in each of our training articles, it takes a lot of training to provide fire service to our community. The instructors, students, and support personnel who made this training happen are volunteers, we can not thank them enough…