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Local volunteers attend fire school

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Six members of the Albany Volunteer Fire Department spent all of last weekend at the 46th annual Wichita Falls Fire School training in fire fighting, fire company operations, fire hydraulics, search and rescue in a structure fire, ropes and knots, and lpg fires.  

“These men and women were working their tails off to learn and to make themselves better firefighters in order to protect you and yours,” said fire chief Kyle Tischler.

Attending the training school were assistant fire chief Travis Gardenhire, Alison Gardenhire, Joel Vier-tel, Cyrena Viertel, Paige Thompson, and Casey Kimbrough.

“Albany has been going to the Wichita Falls fire school for several years,” said Travis Gardenhire. “This was my fourth time there. Each year they change it up a little. On Friday our group split up and went to three different classes.”

The Albany firefighters did live burns all day long on Saturday, working with search and rescue in the school’s four-story burn house.

“They would tell us how many victims were still in the structure, and we’d send in a search and rescue team and have to find them,” the assistant chief said. “Then another team would put out the fire.”

Gardenhire said that the Saturday evening session dealt with how to properly cool off and shut down an LPG tank fire, while Sunday’s ropes and knots course cumulated in three of the local firefighters getting to repel down the outside of the four-story burn house.

“It’s just a phenomenal school,” Travis Gardenhire said. “I hope we can take even more members next year.”

The local fire department pays for the school out of money from the city budget and donated funds. They then apply for a grant from the Texas Forest Service to reimburse the expense.