On Thursday, August 24, 2006, members of the Moreno Valley Fire Department met with other firefighters at the Philmont Scout Ranch to train on LP Gas fire suppression techniques. This event - with LP gas provided by the Northern New Mexico Gas Company - gave area firefighters valuable experience in dealing with propane fires.

Most homes in northern New Mexico have propane tanks. When a structure fire occurs, a significant concern is almost always the protection of the propane tank. When protection fails, or when the problem is the tank itself, the techniques learned here will help firefighters deal with it effectively and quickly.

The basic problem in dealing with a propane fire is to be able to approach the tank to work on it. Propane fires, because of the large amounts of fuel, are generally too hot and violent to approach directly. The techniques learned were to establish a curtain of water using several nozzles on full fog. As the firefighters approach, they are protected by the water. In this particular exercise, the goal is to turn off the gas valve that supplies the propane. In a real situation the goal may be to turn the valve, disconnect the gas line, or set up rigging to remove the tank from a hazardous area. In each case, the water curtain approach is designed to “push” the fire away from firefighters so they can work.

This centrally located training session included fire departments from the Moreno Valley, including Colfax County District 6 (Moreno Valley) and the the Village of Angel Fire Fire Department. Other departments were Philmont, Cimarron, Springer, and Miami.

Chief Coss was generally “pleased with the level of participation” in Thursday night’s training. Considering that it was not a normal training night, we still had eight firefighters and two support unit members present. In addition to the large number of personnel training, we had many firefighters who were in a higher state of alertness within the district; knowing that several firefighters were away from the district at the same time.