PARSIPPANY — Nineteen members of our Rainbow Lakes Volunteer Fire Company held an extensive training session on best methods of quickly entering locked and secured structures. The three hour training course was conducted at the Rainbow Lakes Firehouse, on Monday, December 4.
The firefighters and officers practiced and reinforced skills learned at the fire academy using forcible-entry door simulators. This is the same state of the art equipment which is used to often train firefighters in major cities like New York, Jersey City and Newark. The Rainbow Lakes volunteers then used the equipment which is carried on each of the three fire trucks in teams to practice opening locked exterior and interior-doors often encountered in firefighting.
Rainbow Lakes Fire Chief Doug Reighard said “practicing and reinforcing forcible entry skills is important as the quicker a door gets opened the faster the firefighters can make entry to save lives and property.”
The training was observed by several of the other Parsippany Fire Companies who may be interested providing on site training to their departments. With increased security and heavy duty burglar resistant doors training sessions like this become more important. This training was provided by John Riker of Firefighter University LLC. John is a retired Deputy Fire Chief with the Newark Fire Department.