Firefighters train at homes to be demolished
Before Fairfax County tears down nine houses on Barrett Road in the Falls Church area, the Fire Department is using the vacant houses for training exercises.
The houses frequently flood when Tripps Run overflows. The county bought the properties in the Bel Air neighborhood and will demolish them for a stormwater project to prevent future flooding.
On Aug. 26, a crew from the Edsall Road (#26) fire station was at Barrett Road to practice rescuing a firefighter trapped in a burning building – although they didn’t set the house on fire.
The scenario envisioned a fire that started in the basement and engulfed the stairs. Firefighters entered the house via a ladder to a second-story window.
Related story: Fairfax County will remove nine homes to reduce flooding from Tripps Run
In a real fire, the occupants would have positioned themselves next to a window, making it easy for them to be brought down on a ladder, said Edsall Road Fire Station Capt. Michael Greulich.
A firefighter searching for occupants, however, could be anywhere in the building, Greulich said, requiring a more unfocused search. He called that situation a “low-frequency, high-risk event.”
The Edsall Road crew also conducted a hose line exercise and practiced breaking through a wall, which is necessary if there’s no other way to get people to safety.
A crew from the Buffalo Fire Station (#28) in Seven Corners conducted training exercises on another house on Barrett Road on Aug. 26.
Fire stations have been using the Barrett Road homes for training throughout the summer and will continue until the houses are torn down this fall. Each station decides what kind of training they need, said Greulich.
Firefighters are practicing searches in smoke-filled rooms, roof rescues, forcible entry, providing first aid to victims, and cutting ventilation holes in the roof to let smoke out, among other operations.
“This kind of training is rare,” said Capt. Jason Abitz of the Fire Department’s professional development section. “We can’t do the full start-to-finish drills like this at the station. These homes give us that chance.”
The Tripps Run flood mitigation project involves reshaping the stream channel, excavating and grading the land to provide space for water storage, removing more than 100 trees, demolishing that section of Barrett Road, and planting native trees. The bridge between Barrett Road and Holloway Road will be removed.
When the Bel Air neighborhood was developed in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the county didn’t have regulations restricting development in floodplains.
Flooding in the community has gotten worse in recent years due to heavier, more frequent storms and inadequate stream channel capacity.
Funding for the project comes from an $8.9 million grant from the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation’s Community Flood Preparedness Fund.
The Fairfax County Stormwater Planning Division is holding a community meeting on the project on Sept. 3.
It’s good that FCFD gets an opportunity to train in those houses. I wonder if they’ll actually burn them and put the fires out, as I know FCFD has done that in the past. That would be interesting to watch. Also interested in the reuse of the land. Besides planting native trees, perhaps, a few Japanese cherry trees along the stream. The potomac cherry’s won’t be replanted for quite a while due to the waterfront repairs.
Definitely a nice long green space in the future.