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8A / NEWS / THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2010 / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / KANSAN.COM
VOLUNTEER
Students volunteer for a local firefighting program
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Becca Burwinkle and Dillon Brown force a door open with an axe. The volunteers participate in hands-on training and practice during the weekend.
BY KELLY MORGAN kmorgan@kansan.com
It's a chilly Tuesday night and all is calm in the garage of the Wakarusa Township Fire Station. Fifteen students sit in neat rows of four while they listen to the first part of what will become a three and a half hour lecture on fire hoses and knots. The peace is quickly broken though, when their teacher, Amanda Britain, looks up from her book and says, "Gear Test."
"Gear tests are pretty fun," said Dillon Brown, a customer supervisor at the KU Bookstore. "For a real fire, minutes count and we need to be able to go as fast as possible."
In a flash, the students are up and racing across the garage toward their firefighting gear. They now have a minute to put on their shoes, pants, coats, gloves, face masks and helmets and to get ready for their oxygen tanks.
After one minute, a few students are still fumbling for loose straps and have yet to put on helmets.
"Let's do it again," says Lieutenant Greg Anderson.
Brown is just one of four University-affiliated individuals
who are enrolled in the Wakarusa Township's Volunteer Firefighter Program. The four-month long course meets twice a week and every other Saturday for four hours at a time to learn the technical, analytical and physical skills necessary to become a firefighter.
We usually have lectures during the week and then put what we learn to use on Saturday," said Becca Burwinkle, a senior from Overland Park.
education department.
"I learned that baseball bat swings are not an appropriate way to break a window," laughed Rafael Sanchez, an Administrative Associate with the School of Pharmacy. "Shards of glass probably wouldn't be the best thing if someone was trying to escape on the other side."
Forcible entry was the topic of last Saturday's class. For hours the students sawed, drilled and smashed their way into a special trailer provided by the University's community education department.
Program leaders warn that while it is fun, the high cost and time commitment are not for everyone.
"Almost every year we'll get people who sign up for the program and then realize that the time commitment is just too much," said
Chris Moore, chief of the Wakarua Township. "There is a lot of work like reading assignments or volunteering that can only happen outside of the classroom."
Readings require the students to memorize different knots, gauges, hoses and much more.
"You have to learn it," Burwinkle said. "PeopleLS lives depend on it."
Over the last four to five years. Lieutenant Greg Anderson notes there have been 100 to 115 deaths for firefighters in the line of duty.
"The majority of those that occurred were volunteer firefighters," Anderson said. "We have to stress to them to work as hard, as if they were firefighters who did this as a career."
Learning these skills is important for the students as well.
Despite the hard work and risk involved in becoming a volunteer; for these 15 people, the benefits will outweigh the risks.
"Right now I'm working towards a dream of mine I've had my whole life," Brown said. "There aren't many careers where your job is to help people."
Edited by Leslie Kinsman
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