Firefighters Train At Quality Inn Motel Before Its Fully Demolished

EAST HAVEN, CT — "Our job is adrenaline."

Though all the action firefighters were involved in was simulated, the goal was to make it feel as real as possible. And on a dreary, rainy and raw late spring day on the site of a highway-fronting time-worn motel being demolished, it felt real.

“We're a small department, so we don’t have a training center, unlike some other departments," East Haven Fire Department Chief Matt Marcarelli said.

The Quality Inn is being demolished to make way for a Home2 Suites by Hilton. Read that story here.

Crumbling and being ripped apart, the motel offers, Marcarelli said, a “unique training opportunity.”

"We were really hoping to get in here and had our eyes on it for a while," Marcarelli said. He said the building owner, Gary Desai and the mayor's office were "all cooperative with us getting an agreement with them to hold harmless, so we could do whatever we needed to do in here, short of lighting a fire."

"We did have some smudge pots to smoke up some rooms to simulate an actual smoke condition in a fire, which gave it more of a realistic feel for the firefighters," Marcarelli said.

They're using the site for training, including what he called “forced entry,” in spots that were already completely demolished, Marcarelli explained. Firefighters had the opportunity to use forcible entry tools to into metal doors into units, they did roof training, meaning cutting holes in the roof for what is called "vertical ventilation, a firefighting operation."

And, firefighters conducted search drills, breaching of walls, one room to another using the wall to get through and simulating the rescue of a downed firefighter.

The training was monitored by Marcarelli and Assistant Fire Chief Chris Rosa and led by East Haven fire Deputy Chief James Murray, the department’s training officer.

"We have a young department," Marcarelli said of the 52-member department, where just two firefighters are eligible for retirement. "They don't have a great deal of experience, so this is the type of training that saves lives."

Patch tagged along with Murray as firefighters simulated a "bailout" and later, inside the crumbling motel, a look at a simulated fire victim rescue.

"When conditions get so deteriorated, where a firefighter may have had to bail out a window or be rescued out of a window," Murray explained. "We use the ladder as a high point to assist with lowering a firefighter out a window. It's an unusual occurrence, but it does happen."

As a reporter stood by, a small group of firefighters began the first of two firefighter rescue simulations; one with a dummy and one with a real firefighter.

"This is a worst-case scenario, where we have somebody inside where there’s too much fire, and we’re unable to remove them through normal means," Murray said.

Inside the motel, a training had Murray set up smudge pots and, using wet hay, simulated a fire with smoke conditions.

East Haven Mayor Joseph A. Carfora told Patch that, "This is another example of our Chief being resourceful and proactive with respect to training."

"It's also a great example of collaboration with the private sector," he said. "On behalf of the department and the town, I’d like to thank Mr. Desai and his team for affording the department this critically important training opportunity."

Carfora said he's been "very supportive of the department’s training efforts, given the enthusiasm and drive of our young department."

Marcarelli assertively applies for grants to help cover equipment costs. As Murray noted, "He's brought us into the 21st century."

And, the Carfora Administration has helped to "provide the fire department with the resources necessary for a modern fire and EMS department."