CSLEA, FMESA members at center of preparedness
Source: editor@cslea.com
Date: 6/29/2010
A joint state and local, fire and rescue operation completed its first practice recently, just in time for the fire season and the daily problems either Mother Nature or man's clumsiness throws at society.
All 13 teams of the California Fire & Rescue Training Authority (CFRTA) participated in a simultaneous Cal EMA/CFRTA training drill in Sacramento and El Dorado counties, using their assigned vehicles and equipment caches.
The purpose of this training was fourfold:
- to ensure each of the 13 teams had an adequate number of personnel trained as swift water boat operators
- to ensure that each team had one person certified as a Swiftwater Boat Operations Trainer
- to ensure that all 13 teams had identical training
- and to ensure the integrity of the system with personnel from the various teams assigned randomly among the 13 caches.
CFRTA is a joint powers authority formed by Cal EMA Fire & Rescue, the city of Sacramento Fire Department, and the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District. CFRTA provides a wide variety of training statewide in:
- fire suppression
- fire management
- urban search and rescue
- swift water flood search and rescue.
Fifty-two crew members from across the 13 teams began with simple boat maneuvers in still water along the American River in Carmichael, then moved into fast-moving, multidirectional flows at the confluence of the American and Sacramento rivers in Sacramento, and finally into extreme rapids of the American River below the PG&E spillway at Salmon Falls above Folsom Lake.
A 2007 grant from the former Governor's Office of Homeland Security allowed CFRTA to purchase and fully equip 13 swift water flood search-and-rescue vehicles and trailers for staffing by local fire agencies statewide.
Assistant Cal EMA Fire & Rescue Chief Joe Gear serves as the executive director of the CFRTA and reports to a Joint Powers Authority governing council, where State Fire & Rescue Chief Kim Zagaris serves as chairman.
Gear, in his dual roles as a Cal EMA Fire & Rescue Special Operations AC and as the executive Director of the CFRTA oversaw the weeklong training, which was complete success and ensures unified training and procedures among all 13 Cal EMA Fire & Rescue Swiftwater Flood Search & Rescue Teams statewide.
[Photo below: Chief Joe Gear, right, directs training operations]
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