EVANSVILLE, IN (WFIE) -
It's was all a drill but still an exciting training exercise as Evansville Firefighters rushed to a fire in a four-story building.
It was training of a different kind for those firefighters. The building had several stories and it was all done in the dark.
Seconds after the dispatch went out, firefighters rush to the scene where a victim is possibly trapped in a fire on the third floor of the building.
"Deploying hose lines to the third floor, it takes a while. It's very hard work," said instructor Mike Larson.
But it's work Larson says they can learn from. It is not a typical run for the firefighters. Most are used to battling fires at single-level homes. But in this situation, there's four floors and to make it even more difficult, they're fighting the fire in the dark.
"It'll whip you. By the time they get to the third floor, whoever is humping that line up the floor, he's going to be tired. It is very real," said Larson.
Larson is watching all the moves these firefighters make while another instructor is stationed outside. Both taking notes on what they see.
"Good things, maybe not so good things, things that we can improve on," said Larson.
Those notes are then shared afterward in a debrief.
"We learn how to communicate back and forth. How to understand more how the other guys work along with a crew we're not used to and it makes it more efficient," said Evansville Fire Department Capt. Rick Dorsey.
"Hopefully, at the end of the night they can go back to the station, talk about it and just really kind of pull it a part and say, "hey, next time we get in this situation, if it's the real deal, this is what we learned in training,"said Larson.
Larson says the fire department needs to update its training center but that could cost over $600,000, and that's money they just don't have right now.
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