Fire Tactics Course Is Available in the Fall

Firefighters from the Straits area and Eastern Upper Peninsula region are being offered a fire ground tactic course at Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island Sunday, October 5, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The course will instruct firefighters in techniques used in residential and commercial building fires.

John Norman, formerly of the New York Fire Department and author of "Fire Officers Handbook of Tactics," will be the instructor for the day-long course. He was deputy assistant chief for special operations and was present during the 2001 terrorist acts on the World Trade Center. He has been an adjunct instructor at the New York City Fire Academy, and is an instructor at the Nassau County (New York) Fire Academy. He travels across the country to lecture on a variety of fire and rescue topics.

The course will cover private dwelling fires, store fires, search and rescue, fire behavior and firefighter survival, death and injury rates, common construction deficiencies, differences between residential and commercial fires, hose line selection, stretching, and placement, gaining entry and exiting, cockloft fires and roof operations, trusses and other lightweight roofs, and cellar fires

"This is something we can do as a department t o help everyone in the area," said Island Fire Chief Dennis Bradley.

The course is $50 per firefighter, and the department is offering the course free to two firefighters each from its mutual aid neighbors, Mackinaw City and St. Ignace.

Registration deadline is Friday, August 15.

The class is limited and will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis.