{"id":108777,"date":"2017-08-03T11:48:44","date_gmt":"2017-08-03T15:48:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=108777"},"modified":"2023-01-24T13:48:38","modified_gmt":"2023-01-24T18:48:38","slug":"how-bates-help-lewiston-firefighters-do-their-dangerous-jobs-safer-and-faster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2017\/08\/03\/how-bates-help-lewiston-firefighters-do-their-dangerous-jobs-safer-and-faster\/","title":{"rendered":"How Bates helps Lewiston firefighters do their dangerous jobs safer and better"},"content":{"rendered":"

The college-owned house at 143 Wood St. looked lifeless.<\/p>\n

A salvage company had removed windows and stripped out copper pipes. Spray-painted letters on the sidewalk told of discontinued water and sewer service. In the basement, heating oil had been drained from a tank and sent to Cutten Maintenance Center for reuse in other Bates buildings.<\/p>\n

But like a cadaver heading to a medical school, the empty building still had something to give. And in this case, the beneficiary was the city of Lewiston.<\/p>\n

Over three days in July, the gutted former student residence known as Holmes House became the latest Bates building to help Lewiston firefighters do their dangerous jobs safer and faster.<\/p>\n

\"Lewiston<\/a>

Lewiston firefighter and training leader Eric Watson talks to his firefighters on July 18, the first of three days of training at Holmes House. (Jay Burns\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

Bates provides the majority of buildings for Lewiston\u2019s firefighter training, says Bruce McKay, the city\u2019s acting fire chief. Slated for razing, the structures are used for everything from learning how to remove an injured firefighter from a basement to clearing windows, cutting vent holes in the roof, and breaching a wall if escape through a doorway is blocked by fire or debris.<\/p>\n

\u201cBates has been very good to us,\u201d says McKay, and the acting assistant chief, Marc Caron, agrees. \u201cWe\u2019re grateful for the opportunity.\u201d That\u2019s because firefighter training sites aren\u2019t easy to come by, especially ones that are just a half-mile from Lewiston\u2019s downtown fire station.<\/p>\n

Neighboring Auburn has a permanent training building that\u2019s available to area fire departments. But because firefighters train when they\u2019re on duty, \u201cyou never want your firefighters too far away from the core of where they need to be,\u201d says McKay.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt becomes an issue of response time.”<\/p>\n

Plus, using a real building is, well, \u201cmore real. It affords us opportunities we don\u2019t have,\u201d such as learning to find a fire hidden behind a real wall.<\/p>\n

\"170718<\/a>

\u201cPeople don\u2019t realize the potential loss of life from a fire,\u201d says Watson. (Jay Burns\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

Lewiston does use the Auburn facility for live-fire training, since strict regulations make it unrealistic to use donated buildings, such as Bates\u2019, for that purpose \u2014 not to mention that burning down a house in a residential neighborhood, producing lots of smoke and ash, would be, shall we say, uncool.<\/p>\n

McKay\u2019s point person at Bates is environmental health and safety specialist Jim Guzelian. The two talk often, whether about potential buildings for training, using Lake Andrews for practice running the department\u2019s portable pumps, or helping Guzelian with his annual student fire-safety day in the fall, including a live-burn demonstration.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a good relationships with the department,\u201d says Guzelian.<\/p>\n

The buildings that Bates turns over are typically on the periphery of campus, purchased by the college in the 1970s when the college expanded its enrollment by about 400 students, and now obsolete.<\/p>\n

For example, when Chu Hall and Kalperis Hall opened on Campus Avenue last year, Bates was able to retire three student residences, substandard in terms of their being poorly insulated and inefficient, on Wood Street.<\/p>\n

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Lewiston firefighters practice cutting vent holes in the roof a Holmes House on Wood Street.<\/em><\/p>\n