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HomeMy WebLinkAboutInvaluable TrainingThursday July 28, 2005 Texas Municipal Fire Training School instructor Robert Weiss has been teaching firefighters for the past 19 years and says he often applies his training to real -world situations. Eagle photo Dave McDermand Eagle Staff Writer Invaluable training Instructors say fire school gives them the upper hand on the job By HOLLY HUFFMAN C y -Fair firefighter Mike Montgomery sal- vaged a row of burning townhomes by shut- ting off flaming gas valves — a technique he learned at the Texas Municipal Fire Training School in College Station. Pasadena Fire Chief J.D. Gardner used proce- dures he learned at the same school to help rescue an injured worker who fell into a vessel at a plant in Texas City. Brenham firefighter Robert Weiss was taught how to use foam to extinguish oil fires, expertise he put to use when his department was called to an oil well blaze sparked by a welder. "We knew the training would work," said Mont- gomery, 50, who also serves as Harris County fire marshal. "We saw it as a challenge, but more importantly, we saw it as a chance to apply what we had learned and use it in the real world." Montgomery, Gardner and Weiss are among 420 volunteer instructors schooling their counterparts from 11 states at the Texas Engineering Extension Service's annual municipal fire school this week. This summer marks the 76th anniversary of the municipal school at Brayton Fire Training Field, billed as the largest live - fueled fire training facility in the world. Three schools — Spanish, Industrial and Municipal — are held at the College Station facility every July in back -to- back, weeklong sessions. The municipal school draws most- ly volunteers, and this year is boasting its largest attendance — 2,425 firefighters — in more than a decade. Many of the students become regulars at the school, eager to return and learn the latest in fire safety, and some of the more dedicated go on to become instructors. All are quick to say the knowledge gained at the school — whether as students or return- ing instructors — is invalu- able. "God, every bit of it," Refu- gio Fire Chief Don Pullin said, pausing to consider just how much of his training he had been able to apply to his daily experience as a fire chief. "I can't think of anything that we have learned that we have not put to use." The 59- year -old said he has been a firefighter since he was 8, when he started responding to fires with his father — who then was chief of the same department he now leads. His first trip to the College Station fire school was in 1970, and he attended the sessions another 18 to 20 times over the next 25 Instructor Mike Montgomery trains a line of firefighters on how to put out a petroleum fire Wednesday at Brayton Fire Training years before becoming an instructor in 1995. Now a safe- ty officer, this is his 10th con- secutive year as an instructor at the school. Pullin said his Refugio h.,.....t often is called to oil field and ranch accidents, and many of his firefighters hone their skills for such responses during their week of training at the school. He recalled one traffic acci- dent during last year's winter snowstorm in which a car overturned next to a tree and a person was trapped under- neath. The scenario was near- ly identical to a simulation he had trained on at Brayton, he said. "It just comes back to you, how you're supposed to han- dle it," said Pullin, who also spent 30 years as a firefighter for the Defense Department, working with the Navy. "When you get on scene and something goes wrong, you gotta get it under control. That's when you go back to your training." More than 60,000 firefighters are trained annually by fire school instructors, TEEX offi- cials said. Many are trained at Brayton, but the school also sends delegations of instruc- tors to departments that can't easily send personnel to Col- lege Station. Instructors have gone as far as Saudi Arabia, Peru and Brazil, officials said. "They're here because they want to return something," said Mike Wisby, a TEEX pro- gram manager, referring to the municipal school's volun- teer instructors. Most of them take a week of vacation to Eagle photo /Dave McDermand Field. Montgomery, fire marshal for Harris County, has served as an instructor at the weeklong municipal fire school for 11 years. teach for free at the school. "It's a mission." Weiss, a former chief of the Brenham Fire Department and a 26 -year fire service veteran, attended the school for about four years before becoming an instructor. It's a post he has held for nearly two decades. The 52- year -old easily listed skills that he has gained at the school and applied to his vol- unteer profession. He learned how to use less water to pre- vent water damage. He used his rescue skills to help retrieve a man who fell down a hole. And he learned new techniques for using the Jaws of Life as car frames evolved from metal to fiberglass, he said. Both Weiss and Gardner — who has attended the school for 22 years, first as a student and then as an instructor — said they sometimes are approached by former stu- dents who want to share a story of how they used their training. It is working with those stu- dents, Gardner said, that makes his job rewarding. As chief in Pasadena, Gard- ner, 42, spends most of his time behind a desk. So it is rewarding to work hands -on with firefighters, all of whom are eager to attend the school and learn new techniques to share with their home depart- ments, he said. "To come out here and work all week and sweat with the students, it's just a great feel- ing," he said. • Holly Huffman's e-mail address is holly.huffman@theeagle.com.