Just add fire

Published 10:00 am Saturday, May 7, 2005

Firefighters find a condemned building makes for good training.

It’s not every day that island firefighters put their skills to the test this far off the ground.

Maybe not since the mid-1970s, by Butch Lundin’s recollection.

“Last time I fought one this tall was the high school fire,” the Bainbridge Island Fire Department captain said Tuesday evening, recalling the infamous blaze that destroyed the main high school building.

“We’ve had flatter ones,” Lundin said, as firefighters headed to the roof of the three-story Seabreeze Apartment building at Madison and Bjune, “just one this tall.”

Fortunately, this week’s incident was just an exercise.

The Seabreeze will be demolished later this month, to make way for a new mixed-use project of the same name. The property owners considered relocating and reusing the building – it was already moved once, to lower Madison in the 1950s – but found the structure was too decrepit to restore.

“It was just totally toast,” architect Sean Parker said, “and that’s a technical term.”

So before the wrecking ball rolled in, the owners gave firefighters the run of the place for training sessions that included pretty much everything short of an actual blaze.

Daytime and evening sessions put volunteers through their paces in a variety of scenarios – most of them resulting in extensive damage to the soon-to-be-razed building – that couldn’t otherwise be practiced with nearly as much realism.

“This is awesome,” Fire Chief Jim Walkowski said. “This is very unique, obviously.”

One drill sent firefighters crawling through rooms and hallways in low-light situations that simulated smoke-filled buildings – and that was as easy as it got.

Another scenario had firefighters smashing their way through the apartment walls to practice extricating a downed colleague from an adjacent room.

First swings of the fire ax by one volunteer were tentative, earning the reproof of Fire Captain Greg Borgen.

“We’re not creating an ice sculpture,” Borgen said. “Just whack away and get that stuff out of there.”

That brought new vigor to the effort; the wall was quickly breached, and amid a choking swirl of drywall dust, a manequin was located and pulled through the hole from the other side.

But the most visible aspect of the drills took place outside, with numerous passersby pausing to watch as fire trucks lined the intersection.

The department’s aerial aparatus – to the layman, a ladder truck – shuttled firefighters and equipment to the Seabreeze roof.

Working in teams, the firefighters practiced a “venting” maneuver, testing the rooftop for weak spots, then carving out large holes with roaring chainsaws and pikes.

The building didn’t give up the ghost easily. Firefighters found the going difficult at points, hacking through robust materials cobbled together over the decades.

Turns out they just don’t build them like they used to.

The venting maneuever completed, volunteeers scooted down the ladder and headed inside the building for more work.

“As if it hasn’t kicked our (butts) already,” one volunteer said.