On Monday, February 29th members of the Oakland Volunteer Fire Department spend the evening playing dodgeball.

A drill was held where members dressed in full fire gear from head to toe and played dodgeball in the Dogwood gym. This was an exercise designed to train our members on how to conserve air while breathing through their air packs. Prior to the dodgeball exercise, all members gathered together to watch and instructional video on the consequences of not managing your air supply and the perils of running out of air during a fire incident.

The drill, while seemingly fun, was very strenuous and the energy each firefighter expended, while not even close to what would be expended during a fire event, demanding and challenging. Conserving air is an important skill as each air pack that carries about 20 minutes of air, and having drills such as this one so firefighters can learn how to properly breath in a slow and controlled fashion can be the difference between saving a life or not – and possibly the firefighters own life.

Training also included the importance of check, double checking and rechecking your equipment which includes face mask, air tank, air gauges, hose lines and radios because a fault in an one of these items could mean the loss of a firefighter.

Additionally great importance was placed on the need to wear your air breathing equipment in any smoke situation due to the many toxins that are present in smoke and fire incidents and the significant health risks that each firefighter faces during these events.

For more information you can watch the video ‘Out of Air’ by accessed online by following the following link - https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video;_ylt=A0LEV0oNoeVWN2MAABBXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTE0OXJuaHZ0BGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDQjE1OTFfMQRzZWMDcGl2cw--?p=%22Out+of+Air%22+by+AFD+Training&fr=mcafee&fr2=piv-web#id=1&vid=f99551b0d77c134ddce192a7408d618c&action=view