by David Ball
Staff Writer
An infant’s pulse and breathing jog in varying tempo as a group of Jacksonville firefighters and paramedics work to stabilize the small patient.
“It could be cardiac arrest, it could be respiratory. They just don’t know,” said Lt. Cliff Danley, watching the tense scene unfold. “But they need to figure it out.”
Suddenly, radios chirp with details of an emergency somewhere else in town. The infant is only a training simulator — a plastic doll with sophisticated sensors — and the workers drop what they are doing to assist the call.
Minutes later, firefighters involved in a separate exercise hear about a nearby Radio Shack on fire, and so it’s back to work. It’s just a typical day at the Jacksonville Fire & Rescue Regional Training Center, where the non-routine is part of the routine.
Danley, one of the academy’s top instructors, said the calls are normal during busy weeks, but the trainees will be back. They join thousands of personnel who will train this year at the 18-acre facility, located at the Florida Community College at Jacksonville South Campus off Beach Boulevard.
The center is one of the premier fire and emergency services education facilities in Florida and boasts five classrooms and numerous training structures to simulate vehicle fires, propane and gas leaks, high-rise rescues, aircraft crashes and good-old-fashioned buildings engulfed with flames.
A new health and fitness course, set to open in a week, rounds out the facility that offers 100 different courses and certifications. Even more expansion is planned soon — think, fighting fires and performing rescues on the water.
“Training is a very important part of our department, for our employees to know how to save lives,” said Chief Elly Byrd, who directs the training center and its 18-member staff of administrators, instructors and course developers.
“We’re busy all the time,” Byrd continued. “I don’t see it slowing down. There’s always something to learn.”
The center was built in the early 1990s and replaced the 1920s-era training center on Stockton Street. The facility’s old brick training tower can still be seen while driving on I-10.
Each year the new center hosts some 200 recruits, who spend 900 hours in the classroom and in field exercises, and thousands of active fire rescue staff that train an average of 50-75 hours for ongoing certifications and to acquire new skills.
Danley said about 37 fire rescue staff train any given day (only 10 percent of the active force is allowed to be at the center at one time), in addition to 20 FCCJ students and 20 first-responders, such as emergency medical technicians.
The pediatric advanced life support (or PALS) class, with the infant training simulator, takes 16 hours to complete and is required for many first responders. It’s a recent addition to the training center, but Danley expects the class to be very busy for some time as personnel are recertified every two years.
“It tests their ability to recognize (heart and breathing) rhythms, administer appropriate medication and everything else in a pediatric emergency,” said Danley. “This is really serious, really important training.”
There isn’t much training going on that isn’t serious. As Danley leaves the classroom building and and motors his golf cart around the sprawling campus, he points out some equipment — a propane station, a tipped-over gasoline tanker, a concrete building and another one more than six stories tall. All of them can be set ablaze.
Another field stores cars, trucks and even school buses the firefighters use to practice extricating victims from auto accidents. Danley said the equipment isn’t for show — the training these men and women receive is used.
“We’ve had a couple of fuel fires and large gasoline tank fires over the years,” said Danley. “Then there was the Steuart Petroleum fire in 1993.”
That fire was one for the record books. According to the Jacksonville Fire Museum, fire rescue units arrived at the Steuart Petroleum plant at 3 a.m. Jan. 2 to find a large oil tank completely engulfed in flames. They fought the blaze for four days until a special foam was sprayed, extinguishing the fire within an hour. It was the first time a U.S. fire department had extinguished this type of fire.
More recently, the department’s urban search and rescue team aided rescue efforts in Mississippi following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Similar teams from surrounding counties are trained at the Jacksonville facility, but they aren’t the only ones.
Fire departments from across the Southeast train in Jacksonville, mostly for specialized aircraft fire training. And when they can’t visit Jacksonville, the training comes to them thanks to the center’s on-site video production unit.
“Our videos go out to many other departments, because we have the equipment, the personnel and the ability to make the film,” said Danley.
The center also offers civilian classes and training for companies, which Danley said isn’t always simple lessons.
“The most common is fire extinguishing training, but some companies may have specific hazards with chemicals or other more rigorous training,” he said. “The college does charge for these classes.”
Some of the funding for classes and instructors comes from FCCJ fees, but the bulk of the facility is funded by tax dollars through the fire rescue department. However, the center keeps costs down by utilizing donated material and labor — usually from the firefighters themselves.
Two such workers are Lt. Skip Smith and Engineer Tim Nguyen, who last week drilled and dug in the July sun to complete the center’s new health and fitness course. Pull-ups, push-ups, wall and ladder climbing, parallel bars and other obstacles will help firefighters increase strength, agility and on-the-job endurance.
“The average fireman sucks down an air bottle (when encountering smoke) in 15 minutes, but they are supposed to last 45 minutes,” said Nguyen. “When they learn the importance of fitness and nutrition, they can be responsible for making themselves better firemen, and safer firemen.”
Using existing resources allows the center to expand offerings without greatly expanding the budget. This year’s fire training budget totals nearly $2.15 million, up from $2.11 million in fiscal year 05-06.
“We have a slight increase in the budget for the next year,” said Danley, who still doesn’t know if the statewide vote in January for a constitutional amendment to further reduce tax revenues will lead to any training cuts.
“The city is growing north, south, east and west and the department has to grow too, although there’s been only minute increases out here. We’d have to prioritize if we had to cut programs, but it would be very difficult. We don’t do anything out here that isn’t important.”