FORT SILL, Okla. (Feb. 19, 2015) -- More than 200 rural, volunteer firefighters from throughout Oklahoma attended the 5th Annual Destry Horton Wildland Fire and Emergency Medical Services school Feb. 13-15, at Fort Sill.
The free training was sponsored by Oklahoma State University; hosted by the Lawton Fire Department; and conducted here with classroom training in Snow Hall and grass burns on East Range.
"The Lawton Fire Department and the Fort Sill firefighters set up a perfect area for us to do live burns," said Jason Miller, Luther Volunteer Fire Department chief. "It's great training, I encourage any volunteer department in Oklahoma to come to the school."
Miller brought six of his department's 18 volunteers. He said it was the third year he has attended.
The OSU Fire Service Training department conducted the school, which included about 50 instructors and support personnel from numerous agencies and departments, said Paddy Metcalf, OSU Fire Program coordinator.
The school is named after Destry Horton, a Chickasha firefighter, who died from burn injuries while fighting a grass fire near Duncan, in March 2006.
Over a dozen classes were offered including wildland fire fighting fundamentals, emergency medical services, tanker shuttles, search-and-rescue, and performing incident command duties, he said.
The U.S. Forest Service with OSU, offered a G-130, or red-card class. Completion of the class qualified a firefighter to assist other agencies in fighting large wildland fires anywhere in the United States, Metcalf said.
Wildland fire fighting is just as intricate as fighting structural fires, and firefighters can specialize in certain areas, Metcalf said.
Some of the challenges of wildland fire fighting include the terrain, different types of fuel, trucking in water, and weather, such as Oklahoma winds.
The main thing the instructors wanted the volunteers to learn was safety, Metcalf said.
"All the classes stress that things are done as safely as possible," he said. "At the end of the day, that's what it's about -- having a chance to go home."
Lawton and Fort Sill fire departments assisted the school with personnel and logistical support. Clint Langford, Fort Sill fire chief, said his firefighters prepared an area on East Range near the Modified Record Fire Range off Bald Ridge Road for a training burn.
"We light a grass fire and they attack it with their brush trucks, their hand-tools, their hose lines and get into the heat and smoke just like it's a real-world fire, but in a safe environment, Langford said.
"These volunteers -- sometimes they have limited resources, limited funds, but they don't have a limit on the number of emergencies they go on. They are still fighting fires like a paid department," he said.
Fort Sill firefighters also participated in the instruction.
About 100 of the attendees at the school came from Comanche County from departments that Fort Sill has mutual aid agreements with, Langford said.
"In this process as we teach, we are literally working side-by-side with our community partners," he said. "The ones we're going to assist fighting grass fires, structure fires or HAZMATs (hazardous materials). So when an emergency kicks off, we're ready to go."
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