Enumclaw Fire Department/King County Fire District 28 performed more than 50 hours of drill time at 445 Semanski St. within the last three months.

The house and adjacent structures were provided by Highmark Homes, which owns the property. Enumclaw Fire was able to train on forcible entry, search and rescue techniques and most importantly live fire. Live fire training is required by Washington Administrative Code and the chance to do it in actual structures is a great opportunity. The property was perfect for the type of training that is required for the craft of firefighting.

Enumclaw fire was able to train on offensive attacks (interior operations) and defensive attacks (exposure protection with large water). The firefighters set up rooms with extra sheet-rock and built live scenarios based on the quick and safe extinguishment of the fires.

To bring the structures down, the firefighters established an elaborate plan to be able to flow more than 2,400 gallons of water a minute to make sure the fully involved structures were safe and secured for the community. This gave firefighters a chance to deal with complex hose-lays and be a part of a large Incident Command System and operate as a team in the case of a large incident like the downtown fire of 1992.

Enumclaw Fire would like to give special thanks Mike Gorman of Highmark Homes, Sgt. Tony Ryan with the Enumclaw Police Department, Eric Knudsen of Signature Development, Scott Woodbury of the city of Enumclaw and the Enumclaw Starbucks.