Central Texas firefighters train in San Marcos

From KVUE News in Austin
Over the past few weeks, nearly 200 firefighters from all over Central Texas came together to go through a special kind of training in San Marcos. It’s a training designed to help departments from other cities communicate and work together better with each other. The training took place at a dormitory on the campus of Texas State University.

“What we’re doing today is actually how we would set up and command an event in a building like this,” says Fire Chief for the San Marcos Fire Department Les Stephens. “Specifically for San Marcos, we’ve got numerous high-rises in our cities, on the university, as well as Embassy Suites and others. But, we’ve only got a department with 14 people on a shift each day. So if we had a significant event in any of those, it would require a mutual response from our neighboring communities. So, it’s best for us to get together ahead of time, so we’re better prepared when that event does happen,” Stephens says.

Firefighters from Kyle, Sequin, New Braunfels and other Central Texas cities spent days in a classroom learning important communication and inter-departmental training techniques from each other. Then, those same firefighters took part in hands-on training drills. Climbing the 12-story dormitory on the Texas State University campus, firefighters went through smoke-simulated dorm rooms trying to find any potential rescue opportunities.

“It’s a coordinated effort…what we’re doing when you have a high-rise involved it eats up manpower alot…getting gear, equipment and manpower up to the floors and coordinating that with guys…rapid intervention, search and rescue…there’s all kinds of coordination problems that go on with a group like that,” says San Marcos Fire Lt. Jay Horton.

“You get to see their styles, what they do right, what they do wrong, what we do right, what we do wrong, so it’s great,” says New Braunfels Fire Lt. Ethan Linder. Linder says, “The biggest thing we’ve learned is that we don’t have the manpower to do one of these….if a high rise really goes up….even with all our departments combined we lack the resources of personnel to get the job done. We definitely need to plan better. But, we also have to be realistic with what resources we have personnel-wise.”

Stephens says, “It seems like everyone is enjoying it, hopefully taking it back and working on things in their department that we’ve covered here…but everyone seems to have a great attitude about it and wants to continue this kind of training within each department.”

Horton says, “You don’t train for it much and when it happens…it’s a big deal and that’s when we need all these guys to come help us, because that’s when we would be undermanned for a true response for that.”