The Charleston Fire Department had a rare opportunity to complete its weekly training in a dilapidated house Tuesday afternoon.

Unique Home Properties allowed the fire department to complete its training in a house scheduled to be demolished Monday located west of Old Main at 1515 Seventh St.

Capt. Todd Foster said this only happens once every three or four years.

“It’s not every day you have someone that gives you a house and says its OK to cut a hole in their roof and floor,” Foster said.

One shift completed training Tuesday, while the other two shifts for the department will complete training throughout the rest of the week at the same location.

Tuesday’s training was focused on the Rapid Intervention Team, or the task of rescuing a fire fighter who is in distress in a burning building.

This is done by following the Personal Alert Safety System, a device attached to a firefighter that sounds an alert when a firefighter is in distress.

“It’s lives on the line. It’s our own lives we’re trying to save with this when we are practicing saving a fireman that is in trouble,” Foster said.

The team completed a “rescue” of a firefighter who had “fallen” through the floor on the main level into the basement of the house.

A member of the department was placed in the basement of the house before the drill began.

The individual’s PASS device was set off, causing loud beeps every few seconds.

The firefighters then entered the building crawling in full gear, as they would if there was an actual fire. As they crawled, they pounded the floor to find weak spots so they would not fall through the floor, said Capt. Tim Miester.

They followed the sound of the PASS device to find the location of the fire fighter under the floor.

Once the team reached the source of the beeping they were forced to make a hole in the floor to reach the fire fighter in the basement.

As two individuals from the team began to tear up the carpet and create the hole with an ax, a third member made a separate hole to drop the RIT pack, an oxygen tank, to the fallen fire fighter to ensure he had enough oxygen to survive through the rescue.

“In a real situation there would be fire and smoke everywhere, you wouldn’t be able to see a thing,” Miester said.

After two minutes of pounding, the hole was big enough for one firefighter to reach the fallen team member. One member climbed down using a ladder, and once he reached the fallen firefighter, the rest of the team continued to break the floor away.

“They made the hole big enough to get one person down, now they have to make it bigger to get everyone down and back up,” Miester said.

Gas lines and support beams were a cause of concern for the firefighters as they tried to make the “rescue.”

Once every team member was back to the main level of the house the complete training session was dissected.

The role of every firefighter was addressed and questions were answered about the equipment and the procedure.

The fire department completes training every week and the focus is different every time.

“Some weeks we do fire training; some weeks we do emergency medical, sometimes hazardous materials,” Foster said.

However, this week’s training is being focused around this house for a number of different objectives.

“We cut some holes in the roof to start with and we did some ventilation training,” Foster said. “We’re also going to do what we call a bit of overhaul work, which is basically taking plaster and dry wall off the walls and opening it up to see where fire might be hiding in the walls.”

The house will be demolished on Monday; however, the fire department will have reign of the property throughout the week.

The black shift will complete its training today and the red shift will do the same Friday.

Kayleigh Zyskowski can be reached at 581-7942 or [email protected]