Early Wednesday morning, just south of the spot in Uptown Harrisburg where Wildwood Park meets Industrial Road, a thin cloud of smoke from a scorched brick building drifted up through rain. Nearby, a fire engine flashed its lights silently. Across a parking lot, seven or eight fire cadets, half-accoutered, stared out of a garage at the dreary weather, like stringers on the sidelines of a muddy game.
It was the beginning of a long day of live burns, part of the training regime of Harrisburg Area Community College’s 51st Fire Academy, whose number includes the 13 newest recruits to the Harrisburg fire bureau. The cadets, in their ninth week of training, had taken a first pass at the exercises the week before; this round would be their last preparation before formal national testing. “We give them as realistic as they can be safe with,” said Perry Pierich, one of the coordinators. “If it goes wrong—here, nothing happens to you, but if you miss a victim, or the fire doesn’t go out right, or the hose comes off in a pile, or you drop something, that’s a big deal, because that’s a big deal if they do that when they leave here.”
At the garage, engines pulled up and unloaded cadets from the previous shift. Fresh from dousing the indoor blaze, they carried the smell of wood smoke with them. Meanwhile, back at the training ground, instructors started another burn, igniting half a bale of hay and some piled wooden skids in a second-story room. Soon yellow-gray smoke poured from the metal window shutters, and orange spears of flame licked out around the edges. Truck sirens wailed, but only briefly—a 50-yard drive, and the cadets were on the scene, calmly unloading ladders.
Ron Givler, who has taught in HACC’s program since 1984, stood out of the rain under a nearby shelter. A pair of cadets tested a locked door, one of them tapping with the blunt end of an ax blade. Givler, a former industrial firefighter for Bethlehem Steel, explained that firefighters must learn to “read doors,” that is, quickly assess whether they open inwards or outwards. Sometimes instructors flip the practice doors, he said, just to keep cadets on their toes.
The cadets tipped ladders up to the second-story windows. “When you’ve got—we call ‘em your brothers—going in, you make sure you put staircases in every window,” Givler said. He recounted a case of New York City firefighters who jumped to their deaths after an apartment fire got out of control, trapping them on an upper floor. “We teach ‘em, they’ve got to learn how to save themselves, because the cavalry is here, it’s not coming.”
A cadet knelt a dozen or so feet from the structure and started putting on a mask. Givler approved. It was important to keep the entire scene in view, he said. “We want them to not get focused on that fire itself, but on the whole goal.” The cadets entered the building, and a couple of minutes later, the shutters flew open and long jets of water arced out of the windows.
Brandon Trygar, of Northumberland County, one of 13 Harrisburg fire recruits in HACC’s 51st Fire Academy.
A short while later, the smoke had mostly subsided, and the tinder could be seen through the window, smoldering with subdued flames. In the garage, the returning cadets shed their gear, while the other shift, rested, suited up for a victim rescue. The station manager of WHBG-TV approached one of the cadets with a camera, prompting ribbing from the others. “Real American Heee-roes,” someone sang. “Here’s to you, Mr. You-Got-Caught-On-TV.”
Brandon Trygar, from Northumberland County, stood with his helmet off in the garage bay, steam rising from his head. The instructors had added obstacles since the first round of live burns, he said, such as a boarded-up door. It was 10 a.m., and there were still many exercises to come. “There might be more tricks up their sleeve,” he said. “We’ll see.”
