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The best prepare for the worst: Molly Woolley first local firefighter to complete NPS structural fire training

Molly Woolley is the first Tusayan firefighter to participate in the NPS structural fire training academy.
Photo/Greg Brush

Molly Woolley is the first Tusayan firefighter to participate in the NPS structural fire training academy.

photo

NPS structural fire training academy participants conduct a simulated infant rescue during a live fire training exercise.

GRAND CANYON, Ariz. — Tusayan is located about 12 miles from Grand Canyon Village — that’s a lot of ground to cover for emergency and medical personnel.

The Tusayan Fire Department trains alongside the National Park Service fire crews, and for the first time, a representative from TFD was able to attend structural fire training at NPS’ Structural Firefighter Training Academy at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area near Page, Arizona.

That’s where EMT Molly Woolley comes in.

Woolley participates in routine training exercises with the Tusayan Fire Department, but the chance to undergo the two-week intensive structural fire training was an opportunity to put her skills to the ultimate test, as well as develop new ones.

“It’s basically everything you would learn in a six-month training program boiled down into a two-week course,” she said. “It was packed, we were there from eight in the morning until five or six every night. We spent a lot of time outside doing what we would do in real life, exactly the way it would happen.”

Woolley said the class participated in about 12 live-burn scenarios dressed in full turnout.

Training at the academy consists of multiple scenarios that fire crews might encounter in an emergency. Skills training covers everything from the basics of fire suppression, like ladder and hose operation and critical thinking skills, to very specific operations, like extracting an infant from a burning vehicle. Because it’s important to experience actual live fire conditions, academy participants work with specially-designed equipment, such as vehicles fitted with a propane feeder and accelerator to simulate the rapidly-escalating environment of a car fire.

One training exercise simulated a structure fire from beginning to end, beginning with a crew arriving on site.

“We pulled hoses up to the doors, got all our tools ready, put ladders up to the building to access the roof — there was no fire in that scenario,” Woolley explained. “But we got to go to another training site where we experienced a live burn and were able to apply our other skills.”

In addition to the live burns, Woolley also spent time in the classroom, learning everything from how to give a report over the radio to how to properly ventilate certain structures.

Her favorite training exercises involved car fire and extrication drills, skills that might be used in case of single or multiple vehicle accidents on the area’s winding and sometimes isolated roads.

“We learned how to attack a car fire and then did an extrication drill, where we completely ripped apart old cars,” she said.

The Tusayan Fire Department has a mutual aid agreement for the NPS fire team in Grand Canyon National Park to cover the wide, wild areas surrounding both the town and the park — that means they support many different kinds of operations from wildland fires to vehicle extractions to medical calls at local hotels.

Woolley said her work at the structural fire academy will be put to good use at the fire station, and she plans to complete more training with NPS, including refresher courses at the firefighting academy and a driver operations course, which trains personnel to drive the fire engines.

“It was a really good experience,” she said. “It was hands-on experience, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I’ll be able to use everything that I learned and pass it on to my co-workers and the other volunteers here.”


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