George house torched for training

GEORGE — The thing about firefighters is they usually put out fires.

“We don’t get to start them,” said Sylvia Padron, a member of the Quincy City Council and volunteer firefighter with Grant County Fire District No. 3.

But Saturday morning was different, and Padron was one of roughly 30 firefighters — mostly from Quincy, though a couple were from Ephrata — who spent their morning practicing fighting an actual house fire.

In an actual house. At 16202 Rd. 3 SW, about three miles south of George.

The house, a pair of 70-year-old structures originally built for workers at the Grand Coulee Dam, were moved to this plot of land many years ago, carefully put together, and were the home of a long-time Grant County firefighter. But he and his family have passed on, and the house has not been lived in for some years now.

The current property owner would like to expand his irrigated field — the track of the pivot has worn a deep groove across half the front yard. Which means the house, and the tall trees behind it, will have to go.

So, why not let firefighters train, in an actual house, against an actual wood fire?

“It’s a beautiful day,” said Anthony Leibelt, the deputy chief of Grant County Fire District No. 3. “And we’re going to go for it.”

According to Leibelt, the goal of the training is not to set the whole house on fire and then battle that fire. Rather, they have fortified a room in the back of the house, stacked it with pallets and will train fighting that fire, putting it out and relighting it as often as the house’s advanced age and somewhat decrepit condition allowed.

“We’ve taken a room in there, hardened it with sheet rock so we can do multiple burns in there,” Leibelt said. “We’ll put the fire out, or at least knock it down, give it a chance to reset, go back in, let the fire build back up.”

“We’ll do that as many times as we can until it burns through then we let the structure burn down,” Leibelt added.

While firefighters regularly train in fire, it’s usually under more controlled conditions — in special concrete structures battling propane fires that can be turned on and off. Leibelt said an actual wood home burns differently, and firefighters need to have some experience of that.

“This gives us live fire training, which is required by the state,” he said. “A real structure, a real room and contents, to see how they operate and burn, is something that firefighters don’t get to do often enough. And this is a great training opportunity.”

And so they go in, three at a time, to the little room in back to fight the pallet fire, to battle the smoke and the heat. But everyone got a chance, and as the last crew was finishing, it was clear the house itself was no longer going to be able to contain the fire, flames licking up the side of the house and engulfing the roof.

However, the fire moved slowly, something Leibelt attributed to the lack of furniture. Taking the propane torch, he set fire to a stack of pallets outside what appeared to be a living room window.

And that was enough to finally send the little house up into flames.

“I’m not worried,” said Leslie Affeldt, whose husband Clifford is the volunteer captain of First Station 36 in the Sunland Estates along the Columbia River.

Despite the fact her husband is a veteran firefighter in both Grant and Snohomish counties for 30 years, Affeldt said this was the first time she’d ever been to an intentional house fire.

“I’m excited,” she said, taking video on her mobile phone. “I’ve always wanted to be at a live burn.”

As flames engulfed the house, firefighters shot cell phone video and took selfies with the burning house behind them (because “we never get to do this when we work!” one said), and then sat down to lunch of hot dogs and chips as the house was slowly consumed by the blazing hot fire.

But even that had a purpose, Leibelt said, since watching how a fire burns and spreads has training value.

“It takes a lot of manpower to burn down a house, apparently,” he said.

Leibelt said he’d really like to do this kind of training more often, at least once every three years, which the state requires. However, a big problem with older homes is making sure the asbestos is cleared away, and getting the proper permits from the Department of Ecology takes a lot of time.

Of course, you also need a house to burn down.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.