The Warsaw Fire Protection District Regional Training Complex began training volunteer firemen this month in its new 75 by 100-foot building located on Old Hwy 65. The first training session was devoted to Extrication, to prepare for removal of accident victims from vehicles. Future training sessions will include truck driving, first aid, fire hose handling and other skills needed by volunteers in the region.
“We started with Extrication, because 65 percent of our calls have to do with car accidents,” said Warsaw Fire Protection District (WPD) Board Chairman Fred Toomey. “We have a gentleman from the University of Missouri who we hire to teach some classes, and one of our local firemen is working on becoming a certified trainer in most skill areas.”
Toomey said that local training has started this month on the second and fourth Tuesdays. Fire chiefs, assistance fire chiefs and lieutenants will make decisions on what training is needed for their area.
“Having our own fire training allows us to gear it to what is needed locally,” said Toomey. “Most of our volunteers have jobs outside of the WPD. When we send them to St. Louis or Kansas City, they lose their regular job paycheck, sometimes for as long as two weeks. With a local training center, they can train two Tuesdays a month and still make it to their paying jobs. Training in large cities also includes preparing them for skills they don’t particularly need here, like fighting fires in high-rise and multi-floor buildings.”
Tommey said that the kitchen in the new center is still being completed, but the classroom, bathrooms, and office space are finished, and the building was paid for by taxpayers. The center is also a community space and has already been used for a wedding, a celebration of life and a baby shower. Since the WFP is non-profit, it only suggests that those in the community using the building for an event make a free-will donation to help with upkeep of the building.
“We are not profiting from the community use of the building,” said Toomey. “We are very conservative, and don’t owe anything on the new center.”
Toomey said the Training Complex idea began with a vision by the WFP three years ago when the board bought just under five acres of land from the Kreisel family. Toomey came out of retirement, drew a proposal for a possible training center and got with Hostetler Builders who put his drawings and his ideas on their CAD (computer-aided design) system. He got economical bids and was able to get an all-steel building manufactured from investing WFP funds.
“Our next training facilities will be dedicated to the Kreisel family,” said Toomey. “Our next training session will be a smoke house where firefighters will need to put on respirators and breathing tanks. They will go inside a two-story building, find the ‘victim’ and bring him or her out. It will involve ladder training and learning how to get a victim out of a structure with two floors.”
Toomey said that he is always looking for someone like the Kreisels who can help provide support to the firefighters by building more facilities or providing funding to do so. He said that he would like to put a walking trail around the new complex with a gravel or pavement base as wide as a sidewalk. It would be for the firefighters and the community.
Terry Marshal, Assistant Fire Chief of the WFD, said that the training center is regional so outlying fire departments can use it. If they don’t have room to do training in their own facilities, they can do it in Warsaw.
“We already have a place for extrication training, where we bring in cars to work with, and burn containers will be put in place,” said Marshal. “Eventually a silo (for grain fire training) and false hydrants (to learn how to handle hoses) will be available, as well as an obstacle course.”
Marshal said that the local fire department has about 32 firefighters on the roster, but because of their everyday regular jobs, only about 10 volunteers show up when called. He said that getting volunteers is hard, especially at some of the outer departments. He offered contact e-mail information for anyone who is interested in being a volunteer firefighter, as follows. WPD – wfpd65355@gmail.com, Lincoln Community Fire District -linc2fd@gmail.com, Lakeview Heights Fire Protection District – lhfpd552@gmail.com, and Osage Valley Fire Protection District – fpd-ovfpd1@gmail.com.
