Firefighters from Gogebic County gathered for another
training session Saturday. The Lake Gogebic Fire Hall
and Gogebic State Park were the scenes of an all day
training exercise that focused on Mutual Aid Water
Shuttle procedures.
The volunteer firefighters
frequently give up their days off to hone their skills
for fighting fires and savings lives.
The training began early at Lake Gogebic, when
firemen from Lake Gogebic, Watersmeet, Wakefield and
Ironwood Township began their indoor classes at 8:00am.
There Watersmeet Fire Chief Dick Caudill gave a power
point presentation and instructed the firefighters on
Mutual Aid Tanker Water Shuttle. Pictured above, Chief
Dick Caudill is the Fire Chief at Watersmeet. He is also
the Michigan Firefighter Training Coordinator for the 5
counties in the western U.P.
As with most firefighting
classes nothing is obvious nor is it routine. There is a
success proven procedure for everything that
firefighters do, from the time the fire call is sounded
until the last firefighter leaves the scene.
At noon the volunteer firefighters went outdoors to
practice shuttling water from Lake Gogebic State Park
back to the Fire Hall where they unloaded their tanker
trucks in water dams. Gogebic residents and tourists
witnessed the necessity for this training at the
Powderhorn fire last winter, when water had to be
shuttled in from the Township fire hall. Of course
everyone witnessed the epitomy of mutual aid at the 2009
Labor Day fire in Ontonagon, where thirteen fire
departments responded to that disaster.
Saturday’s training included practicing a two pumper
operation. Pumper One was located at Lake Gogebic State
Park. The single pumper truck went to the water’s edge
where firefighters drafted water at a rate exceeding
1,000 gallons per minute. The water was then pumped up
to the roadway where tankers waited and filled their
2-3,000 gal tanks with equally great speed. From there,
the water was brought back to the LGVFD Hall where three
water dams were filled by the tankers arriving from the
state park. The water was then pumped out of the dams by
Pumper No. 2, where at a live fire; this pumper would
serve to act as the Attack Pumper.
There are times when the 2nd pumper would serve as
relay pumper, delivering water to a third pumper that
was designated as the Attack Pumper.
The Gogebic Firefighters are always training,
whether it is for fighting fires or for extricating
victims from an automobile accident. Gogebic County is
fortunate to have firefighters willing to give of their
time to keep the county’s residents safe.
Pictured above- Murphy a spaniel-poodle canine, he
is Watersmeet's perfect mascot.
Polar Bear
Cookbook
Thank you
to everyone who submitted
recipes for the Polar Bear
Hockey Cookbook. The cookbooks
are now available. The cost for
the cookbooks are $10.00 so make
sure to grab one for yourself
and maybe one or two as a gift.
They can be purchased at the Pat
O'Donnel Civic Center concession
stand or by contacting Kerry
Roehm or Micki Sorensen.
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