Annual Firefighters Seminar [Boardman, OH]

[yfdgricker]

Annual Firefighters Seminar
Story from the WKBN TV27 Web Site on 1/24/2010.

Firefighters from across the Valley gathered in Boardman on Sunday for an annual seminar to help them become better at fighting fires.

Nearly 400 firefighters showed up at Boardman Center Middle School on Sunday morning for the 12th Annual Mahoning County Fire Chiefs Association's seminar titled "The Art of Reading Smoke." Firefighters learned how to look at buildings that are on fire and recognize what the hazards are, and the safest way to extinguish a fire.

"They're learning how to look at a smoke event, smoke coming from a building, and using velocity and volume and the color of the smoke, recognizing what's on fire, where the fire's going and then what they need to do to try to put that fire out," said Chief David Comstock, from the Mahoning County Fire Chiefs Association.

The MCFCA brought in speaker Dave Dodson from Colorado, who taught the seminar through video learning.

"We have a lot of movie slides showing states of various fires, trying to recognize what's going on in the building and using examples of how to extinguish the fires," said Comstock.

Many of the firefighters at Sunday's seminar said they've been coming to the seminar for years now, and it's been very helpful for them while out in the field.

"The more information you know when you get on scene, the better off you are," said Timothy Clavin, a firefighter for the Poland Fire Department. "The easier it's gonna be to put out the fires and the better chance of success you have in just putting out the fire or not losing the structure itself."

The President of the Mahoning County Fire Chiefs Association said their wish is that firefighters would take all of the useful information they learn and use it while fighting fires.

"What the firefighters learned today, they'll use when they get to a scene by arriving on scene and looking at it and figuring out what they need to do in terms of extinguishing the fire. What resources are needed to fight the fire. Looking and saying this is a small fire, larger fire and what it is doing, what's burning, where it's going. That sort of thing," said Comstock.