Live Structure Fire Training To Produce Smoke In Mi-Wuk Village
Mi-Wuk Village – Motorists along Highway 108 in the Mi-Wuk Village area could see a plume of smoke rising into the sky on Tuesday.
New Chief of the Mi Wuk Sugar Pine Fire District Steve McClintock advises the public not to report the blaze to authorities as it will be a live structure fire training. The Word of Life Church located at 24630 Highway 108 has donated a house on its property to serve as the learning tool. Chief McClintock details, “We’ll start it [the fire] with 55-gallon drums. We’ll put materials in the drums; hay and stuff. Then put them inside the building and light them off, so it’s all a safe environment that we can train with.”
The exercise is scheduled to run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, January 7th. Chief McClintock details the goal, stating, “We hope to get four or five practices with it before we burn it completely down. After we practice with it so much the integrity [of the structure] goes away.” He adds, “We’ll burn it [the structure] to the ground and then the church will clean up all the mess and haul it [the debris] all off.”
Although the training will not include arson detection, a rescue scenario may be enacted if time allows. Chief McClintock relays, “We have some dummies that we use for training and we may put those in there [the home] so they can do an actual search by going into the rooms until they find the dummies and drag them out.”
Other fire departments from both Tuolumne and Calaveras counties are participating in this exercise.
And just in case you were wondering; Chief McClintock is not related to Mother Lode Dist. 4 U. S. Congressman Tom McClintock.
