Westfield Fire Department Captain’s Rebecca Boutin, bottom, and Chuck Warren, center, and Holyoke firefighter Mike Boucher, top, repel from the roof of University Hall on the campus of Westfield State University this week as part of a training exercise for the Western Massachusetts Technical Rescue team. Boutin and Warren are part of the recently formed response team that includes approximately 85 firefighters from across the area. Partial funding for the team was provided by the Western Regional Homeland Security Advisory Council. (Photo by Frederick Gore)
WESTFIELD – The majority of students residing in University Hall in the northwest corner of Westfield State University’s Western Avenue campus were probably startled when they saw them, some may’ve chalked it up to an April Fool’s Day event.
After all, it’s not every day you see men and women in harnesses scaling the side of a building without any reason.
They had a good reason Tuesday, as members of the Western Mass. Technical Rescue team held a rope rescue training session on the side of the new dormitory.
A unit comprised of 85 firefighters and split into three teams in Berkshire, Hampden, and Hampshire/Franklin Counties, the firefighters train for all manner of rescue situations.
“(People) getting stuck in trees, anybody working on scaffolding, outside hazards, we might have to hike into the woods, scale rock faces in the middle of nowhere,” said Captain Rebecca Boutin, a 15-year veteran of the Westfield Fire Department and a member of the region’s Tech Rescue unit during that same time period.
Boutin led the training session earlier this week, and serves as a training and safety officer, in addition to instructing rope rescue for the Massachusetts Fire Academy
“We do two trainings a month around western Mass.,” she said prior to the group’s lunch break. “Team leaders will go to both, and members pick which one they want to attend.”
The specialized unit, which handles all manner of rescue operations from high angle and slope evacuation to confined space, structural collapse, and trench rescues, has long been using Westfield State’s campus for training sessions.
“This is a virtual playground for tech rescue,” Boutin said. “Lots of confined spaces, places for trench (rescue training), and the smoke stacks, the library.”
One of two Westfield firefighters on hand for the training session, she added that the team can be called anywhere at any time.
“Anywhere in western Mass., over 100 communities,” Boutin said. “Where it is, however, depends on who goes and what trailer goes. There’s so much land area, with so many hazards a lot of wilderness, plus industry, so the potential is definitely there.”
Training sessions like Tuesday’s last from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with a morning and afternoon sessions sandwiching lunch.
“We’re going to be at Granville Gorge next month doing a full operation with full team,” said Boutin, who added that each team within the unit does individual exercises each month. “We’ve done confined space exercises all over the city.”
The firefighters at this week’s session hope that more attention is brought to the necessity of their services.
“If they (a fire department) get to an incident and they realize it’s technical in nature, they will call the State Police in Northampton, and they send out the team,” Boutin said before stating the rapid response times that the unit prides itself on. “It’s whoever gets there first. All team members are dispersed because you’re responding from home. If it were in Westfield, we could be within five minutes.”
While situations such as forest fires generally don’t fall under their purview, Boutin said that the unit must be ready for any manner of natural disaster.
“When the tornadoes came through, we would’ve been real busy,” she said. “That’s all structural collapse.”
Boutin also stated that water rescue maybe brought into their training sessions in a couple of years, but that increased awareness and support from the community is the key to getting more support, allowing them to better serve the region.
“The more people know about us, the more calls we’ll get,” she said.
