RUMFORD – Stepping through a door at Tuesday’s state fire academy training session was like walking into the Twilight Zone.

Visibility was zero thanks to thick smoke that swirled, a reminder of one of the hazards firefighters face when they enter structure fires.

Just as the smoke began to induce feelings of claustrophobia, the door opened and Maine State Fire Academy instructor Shawn Howard, a Skowhegan firefighter, listened for the telltale sounds of entering firefighters doing what they’re supposed to do.

“The rule is if you can’t see your feet, then you’re on your knees,” Howard said earlier. “If you can’t see your feet, you can’t see the hole in the floor that may be there. So you crawl in and feel your way along the wall until you come to a window, then get it open.”

While Howard couldn’t see firefighters Butch Glover of Rumford and J.R. Adams of Lisbon, who crawled noisily along the wall an arm’s length away, he heard them reach the venting window where instructor Steve Terhune, a Naples firefighter, waited.

Once the window was opened, another firefighter outside opened the door, allowing cool clean air to flow into the room from a positive pressure ventilation fan outside.

Howard said that by opening the window and ventilating the room with the fan, the firefighters could release trapped smoke and toxic gases while increasing survivability for victims.

“It also enables them to quickly find the seat of a fire,” Howard added.

Maine Fire Training and Education instructor Jack Berry of South Portland, who is also a member of the Peru Fire Department, extolled the virtues of the positive pressure fan.

“It gets smoke and bad gases out, replacing them with fresh air which enables firefighters to go in quicker and safer,” Berry said. “This exercise gives firefighters a chance to see how it works when they’ve got clean, cool air coming in behind them.

The 120-hour course that began Friday at noon continued in Rumford at an abandoned two-story building off Isthmus Road.

There, 29 firefighters from 21 Maine fire departments from Andover to Camden to Sanford were taught how to safely carry, deploy and climb extension ladders. They also learned how to properly start and use chain saws and power tools to ventilate walls and roofs, and how to work together as teams.

“By cutting a hole in the roof you release poisonous gases that collect under the roof. It also stops the rest of the roof from burning. If you don’t release it quickly, the hot stuff – gases and smoke – drops down the walls, finds and hits trapped oxygen and explodes. If you don’t ventilate the roof, it makes it very dangerous inside. In old houses, the hot stuff goes up to the roof quickly,” Berry added.

On Monday, course participants learned how to rappel and rescue victims using Stokes baskets, body-length litters that are often used in backcountry search and rescue operations where the victim must be carried out or airlifted.

The course, which costs $995, culminates on Sunday, Aug. 24, after a live burn training session.

The intensive nine-day Firefighter II session covers water and foam streams, physical fitness, forcible entry and ventilation, communications, elevator rescue, fire behavior, extinguishers, ladders, below-grade/low angle/confined space rescues, fire attack and water supply.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com