The disconcerting blur of flashing fire truck lights along the Panorama Drive bluffs this March should ultimately prove comforting.
The Bakersfield Fire Department activity along the bluffs should be very comforting especially considering that hypothetical scenario drills are being done there in the interest of honing the rescuing skills of professional firefighters and Bakersfield College student firefighter trainees.
That is what Bakersfield City Fire Department Battalion Chief Doug Greener says, and he also emphasized that the bluffs are a “great resource” for drills, particularly for what he terms “high-angle rescue” scenarios.
Greener is a leading participant in the current bluff drills taking place between 6-9 p.m. during most days between Monday and Friday this March. According to Greener, the state has mandated that fire agencies perform a number of hypothetical night drills specifically geared towards addressing the unique problems firefighters and paramedics face due to “low-visibility” situations.
Greener says that the bluff drills are addressing both complicated high-angle situations and low-visibility situations. According to Greener, professional firefighters as well as trainees need to continually refresh their memories on how to address various complicated and specific situations requiring expertise in hoisting injured individuals and their vehicles over steep precipices.
According to Greener, the procedures include “stabilizing the car and extricating” the injured party. Greener speculates that there have been roughly five to eight incidents in recent years requiring knowledge on how to handle steep-angle rescue situations. Greener says vehicles used for the drills were donated to the fire department by local Bakersfield business Jim’s Towing.
Coordinator for the BC Fire Technology Program Tim Capehart says that high-angle rescuing procedures entail “shoring,” a general term used by firefighters, which includes implementing “cribbage” or wooden blocks to help elevate a wrecked vehicle away from the injured party and places the vehicle in a proper position for safely hoisting it upwards from the bottom of the precipice.
Inflatable air bags and air hoses are also deployed in this situation to further elevate the injured party and the vehicle. Capehart says after the car has been stabilized and the victim has been removed from the car, the victim is then secured by a spine-protecting backboard and transferred to a “stokes basket” and lifted from the wreckage site. According to both Greener and Capehart, the bluff drills are exact reenactments of procedures implemented on the field during actual emergency situations.
According to Greener, the top priority is always the treatment of the injured party after the individual has been extricated from the vehicle. Since patient treatment is the top priority for the attending rescuing crew, the mangled vehicle may have to be cut by rescuers in order to remove the victim. Rescuers swiftly maneuver themselves to address any potential fire problems due to fuel spillage at the location of the accident. At the scene, multiple hoses are at the ready for deployment. Protection of attending firefighting and paramedic personnel is also a top concern, Greener said.
According to Capehart, who is not engaging in the current bluff drills, the bluffs and other local areas such as parts of Hart Park are used for other skill-enhancing drills every year including “fire break” drills.
According to Capehart, drills addressing the “summer fire season” are important and are frequently enacted. Summer is fire season with both camping activity and dry vegetation in fair abundance, he said.
According to Capehart, professional firefighters select an isolated area full of dry brush, clear an area of some of the vegetation, and in the remaining vegetative area, deliberately create a fire through the use of a “drip torch.”
Student fire-fighting trainees as well as professional firefighters go through drills in which the simulated fires are “cut” or quenched. However, student trainees are not allowed to set drill fires because of their lack of experience and expertise; only professionals are allowed to both create fires and to cut them, Capehart says.
BC’s fire program has special “Dozer” classes specifically designed to instruct trainees on how to cut fires created in drills as well as fires in actual emergency situations, including how to create a “backfire,” which is intended to burn into another fire that is either deliberately or accidentally caused.