HANCOCK COUNTY — The black smoke coming from an old structure in the west end of the county could be seen from miles away flowing into the blue and cloud filled sky Wednesday morning.
The good news, the smoke was coming from a controlled burn being conducted by officials from the Buck Creek Township Fire Department during a planned training session.
Crews were going through a real hands on training exercises with the live fire training on CR North 500W just south of West 300N for several days this week. Crews were on the scene for the live burn and actually spent several days there this week getting the sight ready for the training, conducting the training and then cleaning up the area and making sure it was safe.
Buck Creek Township Fire Department Chief Brandon Wilch said the department was very thankful to have the opportunity to use the old structure. Officials were given access to an old home by a land developer in the area who was going to demolish it.
“This type of training is vitally important for our crews to be able to do training on,” Wilch said. “The ability to watch fire progress in a controlled environment, especially for our newer employees, offers us great insight.”
The chief noted that because of weather causing some damage to the old structure, the fire department crews were somewhat limited to the types of training they would be able to do on the old house.
“So because of that, only specific crews will be able to participate,” Wilch said. “However, we have had access to other structures that the developer has given us, and that has allowed all of our crews to be able to participate in some kind of hands-on training over multiple weeks.”
The chief went on to say anytime their instructors have the ability to familiarize themselves to ensure staff safety during these types of trainings, it is extremely beneficial.
“To get the crews out of the normal areas that we train so they can use the skills they’ve learned in progressing through search, hose advancement, victim extraction and teamwork is key,” the chief said.
All of those things the chief mentioned were what the crews worked on as they planned to be at the burn sight for several days before securing the area and moving on to other training.
