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Monthly Report *Calls*
Date and Time |
Call Type |
Location |
03/04/2016 @ 3:02am |
Medical Call |
Rivers Rd |
03/04/2016@ 2:05 pm |
Medical Call |
New Boston Rd |
03/062016 @10:25 am |
Brush Fire |
Mutual Aid Sandisfield |
03/09/2016 @ 3:00pm |
S Brush/Structure Fire Mutual Aid |
Granville |
03/09/2016 2 4:00pm |
Out of Control brush Fire Mutual Aid |
Granville |
03/30/2016 @ 10:36am |
Medical Call |
New Boston Rd |
03/30/2016 @ 1:24 pm |
Out of Control Brush Fire Mutual Aid |
Hartland CT |
03/31/2016 @ 11:53 am |
Wires Down |
Colebrook river Rd |
Monthly Report *Training*
Training Date |
Training Type |
Attendance |
March 1,2016 |
Mass Fire Academy Transitional Fire attack |
Fourteen Personnel |
March 8,2016 |
Ready brush trucks and equipment for brush fire fighting |
Twelve personnel |
March,152016 |
Equipment Maintenance |
Eleven Personnel |
March 22,2016 |
Mass Fire Academy Firefighting tactics involving Solar arrays and roof panels |
Twelve personnel |
March 29,2016 |
Ready boat and UTV for summer calls |
Six personnel |
The fire department has had a pretty busy month with some brush fire calls and medical calls. The brush fire calls are a little early this year due to the dry conditions and we are hoping for a little more rain for the spring to mitigate the dry conditions in the woods. Over the last several months members have been receiving training from the Massachusetts Fire Fighting Academy. Members have had classes in Structural Fire Attack, Vehicle fires, Transitional Fire Attack and Solar Panel and Array fires which is particularly important due to all of the solar arrays popping up on roofs all over Tolland. We have prepared our Brush firefighting equipment for use which includes two brush trucks a brush tanker and our UTV as well as a lot of hand tools and equipment. The brush trucks are a valuable tool for
brush fire fighting as they are specifically built to go off road over rough terrain to fight brush and forest fires off of the main roads. The UTV (6X6) is utilized to do the same but being smaller it can go many places our Pick-up or HUMVE cannot go. It is also utilized to transport personnel into the scene of the fire as many of these fires for strange reasons pop up in remote areas. The UTV is also used for search and rescues as it tows our rescue buggy and equipment out into the woods to search for lost persons or to rescue injured hikers or dirt bikers or snowmobilers. The UTV has become one of our most valuable tools on the department due to its versatility. The UTV was purchased a couple of years ago through donation and fundraising efforts by the volunteers. Our brush tanker is a particularly important piece of apparatus that the volunteers built several years ago from a government surplus military truck. Many of you have no doubt seen it parked behind the Public Safety
Complex in the warmer months. The brush tanker is unique in the fact it halls 800 gallons of water and can go just about anywhere it wants. It is six wheel drive, and Tolland is the only town in Western Hampden County or Southern Berkshire County to own one. It is often used as is most of our brush firefighting equipment at mutual aid brush fires across Hampden and Berkshire County. It is an invaluable piece of equipment as water sources are very scarce in most of the areas brush fires are fought in. This is the only truck that can deliver a large quantity of water into remote locations.
Tolland continues to work and train with its neighboring communities of Sandisfield, Granville, Blandford Otis and even our neighbors to the south in Connecticut which consist of East and West Hartland and Colebrook and Riverton . Mutual Aid training is especially important in rural towns do to the limited number of firefighters in each town. In the case of a structure fire it would not be unheard of for a department such as Tolland to call four to five towns to the scene of a fire for support personnel and equipment and much needed fire fighters. This is not unique to small towns big cities do the same by calling in multiple alarms. So if you hear on the news a four alarm fire erupted on Main Street in Springfield this would mean four different fire stations from the city were called to the scene to
fight the fire. In rural firefighting we call this mutual aid in the city they call for another alarm. This is required to attain the safest level of equipment and personnel to fight the fire or control the incident.
The fire department drills every Tuesday night from 6:30pm to 9:00pm and is always looking for new members. We have rolls within the department for everyone, firefighter, support, traffic control, medical, pump operators and station support. So please stop by and see what it’s all about. Chief Eric Munson III
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