Police and fire training at Indio High School this week
The Riverside County Fire Department and the Indio Police Department will be conducting training exercises at Indio High School in the evenings this week.
They will be using classrooms that have been slated for demolition.
The fire department will be having live fire exercises, setting these old classroom buildings on fire and putting them out.
“What we are doing is not dissimilar to any organized sports team,” said Daniel Talbot, Indio Battalion Chief for the Riverside County Fire Deptartment. “We are treating it like it’s a real live incident, we have plenty of trainers and coaches around to make sure we can fine tune out employee’s skills and make sure they are 100 percent ready when an actual emergency happens,” said Talbot.
“This kind of training is at a premium, we don’t get too many of these types of structures available to us this size to get some good training,” said Bonifacio De La Cruz, Eastern Coachella Valley Battalion Chief with the Riverside County Fire Department.
More than 50 firefighters were on hand for training just for today. Dozens more will be doing these same exercise throughout the week.
“Today we have about 10 engine companies from throughout the Coachella Valley, the Beaumont Valley Pass and Moreno Valley. In addition we have our partners here from Cathedral City who are our partners for emergency services,” said Talbot.
These training exercise are well planned, all the asbestos and other dangerous materials was removed from the walls before the burn, but these fires are still potentially dangerous.
“There is still some hazard but we have mitigated any major hazard and we will always have personnel inside minding the fire and keeping it in check to make sure we have a valuable, but safe training exercise,” said Talbot.
“For our seasoned veterans, it makes them dig down to the basics and for the newer guys this is an exciting opportunity to see fire under controlled circumstances and understand fire behavior and different types of techniques that we utilize,” said De La Cruz.
Fire suppression and rescue drills will take place Wednesday, March 11, through Saturday, March 14, from 3:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. each day.
Police training will take place on Wednesday from 3:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
