FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:                                 April 8, 2022

 

Contact: 

Kinsey Miller

Public Information Office

(850) 926-0919 Ext. 712

 

Crawfordville, Florida – This week, Wakulla County Fire Rescue hosted a Rural Water Supply Class that teaches water sourcing methods for firefighting in areas where water supply systems are not available or accessible. The class prepares Fire and Rescue crews to use distant fire hydrants or bodies of water and equipment to create a water supply chain that can sustain firefighting for hours.

 

“This training is beneficial to both Wakulla Fire Rescue and Wakulla County residents,” said Battalion Chief Zac Lyons, who oversees training and compliance, “it prepares crews for real-life scenarios and exams that can lead to reduced fire insurance rates throughout Wakulla.”

 

While a portion of the class is spent indoors assessing scenarios, strategies, and time factors for battling rural fires, the hands-on training begins when crews start the water supply relay exercise. The two-mile relay challenged Wakulla County Fire Rescue to establish a continuous supply of water, roughly 500 gallons per minute (GPM) for two hours, to battle a hypothetical fire. The exercise required rapid coordination and time management to set up water collection sites and repeatedly shuttle thousands of gallons of water two miles to the training site where it was dumped into drop tanks and pumped to the main engine assigned to extinguish the fire. Wakulla Fire Rescue successfully met the 500 GPM mark and maintained 1,000 GPM during training.

 

“In rural areas, such as Wakulla County, firefighters do not always have access to fire hydrants,” said Fire Chief Louis Lamarche, “these training scenarios are essential to increasing efficiency and ensuring operations run as smoothly as possible during emergency response.”

 

Participants in the Rural Water Supply Class included Wakulla County Fire Rescue and crew members of the Tallahassee Fire Department and North Port Fire Rescue.