Firefighter training lights up night in Washington

WASHINGTON — Residents south and east of Washington’s downtown may have noticed a bright, orange-glowing sky and the sound of whooshing air near the fire station Wednesday night, where a training exercise simulated a liquid propane tank fire and sent bursts of flames high above the nearby rooftops.

LP tank fires represent an especially challenging scenario for emergency responders, according to Washington Fire Chief Brendan DeLong. He said it was good to get the training in.

“If an LP tank is blowing gas like that, it’s going to burn however far the gas remains combustible,” he said. “We had four attack lines of water spraying at that fire and it was still burning. LP fires are harder to put out than normal fires, you almost have to shut the gas off in order to get it out completely … it takes a lot of water, a lot of resources, and it’s very hazardous.”

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With the radiant blaze reaching dozens of feet into the sky, DeLong said Wednesday night’s training represented a worst-case scenario.

“The flames shoot clear up in the air,” he said. “That’s perfectly normal. They actually do it that way, so we know how big an LP fire can actually get. So it looked cool, it looked pretty spooky.”

The roughly three-hour training for around 20 department members was hosted by the Iowa Fire Service Training Bureau, free of charge, with Farmers Co-op out of Keota providing the necessary fuel, according to DeLong.

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com