By Marcial Guajardo

Managing Editor

Memories of last year’s Labor Day weekend wildfires in Pflugerville, which often had firefighters rushing off to a scene on little or no rest, came back to firefighter Tim Wallace last week, during annual live fire training.

Wallace, a Pflugerville Fire Department lieutenant among those who responded to the wildfires last year, was among those taking part in a multi-agency training exercise at the department’s Cameron Road training facility. Firefighters from Austin, Hutto, Pflugerville and Round Rock joined together to review operational tactics and communications involved in a coordinated response.

And though the flames are real and the situation just as dangerous as last year’s fires, taking part in such training is very much welcomed, Wallace said.

“I think that big day will never leave our minds,” he said about the wildfires. “We were all tired and drained. When we train over these last three days last week, it makes us appreciate what we do and why we are doing it. Do we ever want to see that again? No.”

Each of Pflugerville Fire’s three shifts took part in the training, which reviewed firefighting strategy and tactics, resource deployment, communications, teamwork, fireline safety and operations at structure fires. Wallace noted training such as this allows neighboring fire departments, which often respond to the same calls, to become better acquainted with their respective techniques and operations.

“We all do the same job but a little differently,” Wallace said. “We want to train on this stuff so it’s second nature. It needs to happen really quickly, really automatically.”

Wildfire training, specifically, did not take place but firefighters reviewed some of the tactics involved, such as fireline construction and backburns. During the Hodde Lane wildfire last year, a backburn – which involves igniting vegetation in an area to stop a wildfire’s movement in that direction – was set, preventing dozens of homes in the Reserve at Westcreek neighborhood from catching fire.

Firefighter response was credited with saving each of the homes in the neighborhood and an adjacent farm, despite reported wind gusts of up to 40 miles an hour. An estimated 200 acres in the area were destroyed, but no injuries were reported.

The Cameron Road training facility includes a building created to withstand the high temperatures of structure fires, and rooms within it are often set ablaze during training.

Last week, those rooms were again set on fire, as crews practiced a “firefighter mayday” situation inside the “burn building,” Wallace said. A mannequin was placed within the building, in a scenario meant to mimic the circumstances of a firefight turned firefighter rescue.

“Right in the middle of this we’re trying to fight a fire, rescue people, get the smoke out,” said Wallace, “and we hear ‘Mayday, mayday!’”

With as many as 80 firefighters in training at the same time, training scenarios can get rather “treacherous,” Wallace added.

“We want to resemble the conditions we see on a day-to-day basis,” he said. “You’re seeing heat, experiencing live flame.”

Also, firefighters noted they continue to urge residents and business owners in the local area to prepare their landscaping, homes, structures and themselves using the Texas Forest Service’s “Ready! Set! Go” Wildfire Action Plan at texasforestservice.tamu.edu/main/article.aspx?id=12298.