LOCAL NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) brigades burnt down a derelict house at Oakwood on June 25 as a training exercise involving 42 firefighters and eight tanker units.

Inspector learning and development officer for Northern Tablelands, Konrad Sanczynsky said the exercise went extremely well, with even the weather being favorable on the day.

"We had brigade members from Inverell, Elsmore, Gum Flat, Delungra, Ashford, Oakwood, Graman and we also has six firefighters come across from Glen Innes and one from Lismore who’s looking to do something similar over there," Inspector Sanczynsky said.

"We started at 1pm, after we put in a grass fire around the building for safety and to start with we lit up a single room and watched how quickly a fire can progress inside a house, that fire was then put out so fire fighters could see the effects of their actions on the fire.

"We then moved to another room and set fire to that, but this time we used different techniques to put out the fire so the firefighters could then evaluate the pro’s and con’s of each fire fighting method.

"Because the RFS does respond to structural fires in their districts, so this was really valuable training for them to learn about the evolution of fires within a building, it all went really well and the guys learnt a lot," Inspector Sanczynsky said.

"It took only five minutes for the house to be fully involved by fire and Inspector Sanczynsky said in 90 minutes it had been fully destroyed and declared safe.

"This type of exercise just isn’t possible without the generosity of local land owners like Matt and Jaime Leggett who very kindly donated the house for the RFS to train with and the firefighters were very appreciative of the opportunities the Leggett family have given them," said Inspector Sawczynski.

"Without landholders donating these old houses we just wouldn’t get the chance to do this valuable training, and if anyone has another we’d ask them to come in and have a word to us, we’d be very interested.

"We would also like to get a house close to Inverell so we can have Fire and Rescue NSW come along and do some work with them too, this time the sheer number of RFS personnel prevented a combined training exercise, but we’ve got a good relationship with them," Inspector Sanczynsky said.

© 2011 Inverell Times

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