Inside aircraft fire training at Stratton Air National Guard 

SCOTIA, N.Y. (NEWS10) – Every firefighter undergoes extensive training, but military firefighters at the Stratton Air National Guard Base have additional requirements. NEWS10 has an inside look at an aircraft burn training at the 109th Airlift Wing. 

Nearly 40 military – including 12 personnel from the 106th Rescue Wing in Long Island – full-time fire department, mutual aid personnel all participated in an aircraft burn training.

“Kind of share information on different aircrafts and what they have going on at their base and train with them. So, again, you know, just having a whole joint operation like that for training was great,” said Devlin.

Stratton Air National Guard Base Fire Chief Brian Devlin said the annual training keeps everyone proficient.

“Any time we have an aircraft incident, we’re utilizing this training that we do,” said Devlin.

Training they utilize when assisting in military and civilian aircraft emergencies. “We try to make it as realistic as possible,” said Maniacek.

This time the training came to them, so they could stay in service, as they practiced. Captain Nicholas Maniacek said he’s proud of all of this year’s firefighters.

“I was really proud of all of our firefighters this year. They worked together as a team. They didn’t just stick to their one idea that they had,” said Maniacek. “They worked together, whether it was search and rescue and attack, trying to coordinate both activities together to accomplish what they had to. And they were fantastic. So it was a really good burn this year.”

Aside from search and rescue missions, they also trained for emergencies in confined spaces, and?

“This year we actually did a little bit of forcible entry into the aircraft. They had a cut out section we can use our saws on and actually cut through the metal and enter into the aircraft that way. That’s a new thing we tried to bring to our firefighters,” said Maniacek.

The base has 10 mutual aid agreements with the surrounding community. The training gave them the opportunity to fine tune communication with other mutual aid personnel. 

“Which is great because everything comes back in return. When we have incidents on base with aircraft, they return to service, they come on our base, we have hospital structure fires on base, which we’ve had this year. They come on base, they provide us apparatus and manpower. So, it’s mutual. It goes both ways,” said Maniacek.

“All in all, it’s a win for everybody,” said Devlin.