News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Every Monday night, firefighters from Sisters and other local agencies put the torch to a couple of buildings in The Pines.
The deliberately set fires provide an unprecedented opportunity for the firefighters to hone their tactics, learn how fires behave and practice arson investigation techniques. With 24 buildings to burn, the training sessions are the most extensive and comprehensive Sisters area firefighters are ever likely to get.
"I've never seen an opportunity like this," said assistant Sisters fire chief Ken Enoch. "You can fight the fire different ways and determine what's the best way to put out the house fire."
The 24 buildings at the site are 60-year-old houses that were originally brought in by railroad car to provide housing for loggers and their families. The structures are being cleared away to make way for a new manufactured home park.
The live-action scenarios provide a literal baptism of fire for new volunteers, allowing them to experience the intense heat and claustrophobic darkness of a structure fire. And their leaders have a chance to assess their troops' reactions to the physical and psychological stresses of firefighting.
Firefighters get a chance to enter buildings as they are set alight, to see how fire behaves from its initial stages.
"We probably get eight lights, nine lights out of one of these structures," Enoch said. That gives everyone a good look at the way fire works.
According to Enoch, the Sisters-Camp Sherman Rural Fire Protection District regularly invites Cloverdale and Black Butte Ranch firefighters to the exercises.
Other agencies, such as the Redmond fire department, also participate.
The units practice attack scenarios, in which they stage at the Les Schwab Tire store on the McKenzie Highway and are called in to respond to a blaze.
"They'll come in and put out the fire just like you called 911," Enoch said. "We each get to do an attack like that."
In February, an arson team made up of assistant fire marshals and Oregon State Police investigators will stage an arson investigation at The Pines.
According to Enoch, they will partially burn structures.
"They'll have cameras set up that will watch the fire burn," Enoch said.
Firefighters will then douse the flames and investigators will enter to examine char patterns.
Then the firefighters will burn the structures down completely and the investigators will examine the wreckage to determine point of origin and starting materials and other elements of an arson investigation.
With three buildings to work with the team will likely be able to create a variety of different arson scenarios.
The exercises will conclude on February 15, Enoch said, and the houses in The Pines will be gone.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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