WASHINGTON COURT HOUSE, Ohio — Fifteen members of the Washington C.H. Fire Department spent Saturday morning training inside a real two-story house in the city, running through ladder operations, ventilation, search and rescue, size-up and standard operating procedures on a structure slated for demolition.
The department said in a Facebook post that no fire was set and no water was flowed during the exercise, with the crew instead focused purely on skills inside a building the Fayette County Land Bank had already marked for teardown.
The hands-on time came through a new partnership with the land bank, formally known as the Fayette County Land Reutilization Corporation, which operates under the Community Action Commission of Fayette County. The land bank acquires blighted, vacant and tax-delinquent properties around the county, arranges for their demolition and resells cleared or rehabbed lots, often through sealed-bid sales.
The department is staffed by about 30 personnel — three captains, three lieutenants, nine full-time firefighters and 15 paid-call firefighters — operating out of its Market Street station in Washington Court House, according to the city.
Fayette County Box65 Scene Support, an all-volunteer unit that provides rehabilitation services such as water, shelter and refreshments to emergency responders on prolonged scenes across Fayette, Pickaway and Ross counties, assisted crews during the training, the department said.
The department said in its post that it was proud of the crew members who showed up ready to sharpen their craft for the community.
The information contained in this story was obtained from the Washington C.H. Fire Department.
