T-L Photo/ROBERT A. DEFRANK ABOVE: Michael Minder. left, and Jeremy Rife are shown with the Cumberland Trail Fire District’s new ambulance.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE – Members of the Cumberland Trail Fire District continue to train for an expanding and evolving job.

Since the appointment of the new fire chief, John Slavik, in March, the district firefighters have continued to hone their skills, both at the main station on South Marietta Street and at the second station at 6839 Stewart Drive, both in St. Clairsville.

“We continue to train quite often. There’s daily training,” Slavik said. “Every day there’s a different subject on firefighting tactics or EMS. Just about every day but Sunday the individuals are drilling on, it could be the advancement of hose lines, streets and maps, ladder placement.”

More recently, the responders have been undergoing extra training with hydraulic rescue tools used to extricate drivers and passengers from crashed cars and trucks.

“We seem to have had a rash of significant highway incidents,” he said. “We’ve had a bunch of incidents where it’s caused quite a bit of backup on the interstate.”

Assistant Fire Chief Tim Hall pointed out the different types of accidents, complicated by the variety of vehicles on the roads.

“No call is ever the same. Every vehicle’s different, and we train for all of them,” Hall said, adding the district is sending two firefighters to a specialized heavy rescue course in Dayton, Ohio, on Sept. 29. “They’ll be bringing back that information in the latest techniques for extrication to the rest of the fire district when they come back.”

Hall noted that the district covers more than 10 miles of Interstate 70 and 1 mile of 470, inc addition to the city of St. Clairsville and surrounding communities.

“Some of our connector roads are just as dangerous,” Slavik said.

Slavik added that the district is also looking at building layouts to plan strategies for fighting fires in stores or multiple-occupancy residences, such as apartments.

“We’re going to pre-plan target hazards,” he said, adding that procedure will include identifying the four closest water sources, utilities and dangerous materials. “We’ll have a diagram of the building showing if there’s any hazardous materials.”

Slavik added they will also account for wheelchair accessibility in apartments, which could cause delays in evacuating. He said the plans were obtained from prior inspections, such as those conducted by the Ohio Fire Marshal.

“We’re going to take it to the tactical side, so we have a great plan ahead of time,” he said. “Take Rural King for instance. We would look and say: Where are the closest hydrants? Where do we have access with ladders? Where are some of the things inside the buildings that we’d be concerned with? That could cause danger to our attack team. Bulky items on the roof … if there are air conditioning units on these roofs, well that would be on the pre-plan, and that would not be a significant emergency. We’d know by the pre-plan if there’s an odor in the building, maybe it’s not on fire but those big air-movers on the roof.”

Slavik said another new development is stand pipe fire fighting.

“In the stairwells there’ll be outlets for the firefighters to attach their hose lines to a fire outlet,” he said. “If there’s a fire on the fifth floor of a building with stand pipes, we stop on the fourth floor, hook up lines and attack the fire from there. … This is a new style of firefighting, but we’ve probably got seven, eight buildings with stand pipes so we’ve had to buy equipment.”

The equipment consists of valves and pipe wrenches and other tools to attach the lines. He said the use of interior stand pipes proves advantageous when the distance from the pumper is too great for an effective attack line. He added that newer buildings and hotels include this feature.

“We can hook up to the building itself,” he said.

Meanwhile, four part-time members are taking paramedic training at Belmont College. Slavik noted the members must pay for their own training. Hall added that one does not have to be a paramedic to be hired full time, but to sustain full-time employment, firefighters must have paramedic certification.

“It’s a full-time job for the guys to keep their certifications up,” Slavik said.

The firefighters also participate in oil and gas well training incident in Wayne County, Ohio, about two times per year with the Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Education Program’s fire academy.

“It’s very pertinent to our area,” Slavik said. “We go out and fight these fires, and it’s very enlightening. … There’s so many gas well simulators. There’s a tank fire, there’s a big giant open pit fire. There’s a valve simulator fire. It’s probably one of the best in the Midwest.”

Slavik said the training is highly applicable to issues the firefighters may run into in this area.

“Thankfully, we haven’t had any significant … oil well emergencies,” Slavik said of the St. Clairsville area.

Hall added that the gas and oil companies work in collaboration with the Belmont County Emergency Management Agency to keep the fire district aware of the sites.

“Some of the companies will email us weekly updates of what’s going on in their company and locations. That way, in the event that something’s going on, we’ll have up-to-date information,” Hall said. “They usually keep us pretty well informed.”

On Wednesday, the district will participate in a live exercise with Summit Midstream at the southern edge of Richland Township. It will cover procedures for dealing with hazardous materials.

“We also had a driver training day where we brought in a state instructor for a couple days and we trained vehicle maneuvering at the old Kmart parking lot,” Slavik said.

In another development, most of the commercial buildings and many churches in the St. Clairsville area now feature an exterior Knox box containing a key to the building.

“We carry a key that accesses that box so we don’t have to break glass or bend door frames,” Slavik said. “It gives us quick access.”

The district has also acquired some new equipment. A new ambulance has been received, and the district expects to get 110,000 miles of use from the vehicle. The fire district has also obtained a new chief’s command vehicle. The old chief’s pick-up truck has been converted into a brush truck for fighting brush fires.

Slavik added that the district has made close to 3,000 runs this year. These include fire and emergency medical calls, accidents and automatic fire alarms. He added that last year saw 2,700 runs.

“We don’t know for sure we’re going to hit 3,000, but I think we’re going to bypass 2,700 pretty easy,” Slavik said. “That’s pretty busy even for a metropolitan fire department.”

He said there are a number of individuals in the area who are ill, and the department also has frequent calls related to drug abuse.

“No community seems to be safe from those scourges,” Slavik said.