On Wednesday night June 24th after a long awaited time, Wagontown members loaded up on the apparatus and headed to the new Public Safety Training center to use the Tactical Village for our weekly training. This has been a long process that has come after persistence and the backing of many.

Wagontown loaded up and headed down for a night of training lead by Chief Ziegler and his assistants Deputy Chief Reber and Instructor Steve Miller. On hand for tonight’s training was a variety of training scenarios that would otherwise not be possible if not for the use of this facility.

Wagontown prides itself on every Wednesday night doing some type of training that enhances our abilities on the fire ground, incident scene or mitigating any emergency that may come along. However there are some draw backs to providing realistic training, this is where the new tactical village lends itself to provide the props, setting and facility to do many training scenarios.

Tonight’s training encompassed running the initial attack line in the simulated smoke filled burn building, followed by throwing ground ladders and then forcing a door and running the high rise pack up the stairs in the tower and making the connection and again stretching an attack line.

All of these were coupled with a learning session followed by practical exercise which allows for some basic principles behind the actions and a review of our SOG's was incorporated.

We also have 5 new members who will be attending the upcoming Fire I academy at the training center, so this allowed us to provide them with some background training prior to attending class. This will help further their understanding of the material being taught.

"This was an awesome training night and the facility was top notch" was the comment of the night from the crews who attended the training. Over 20 firefighters attended tonight which allowed for groups to move through the training scenarios and even allowed a crew to assist East Brandywine at Freedom Village during the incident there.

Even our fire police got involved and practiced closing roads and assisted with helping the members get ready for the next scenario where they could.

Wagontown is grateful for the partnership we have with Chester County Emergency Services and the Public Safety Training Campus staff for allowing us to use the facility and obtain quality, realistic training.

Special thanks to Deputy Director George "Beau" Crowding for taking pictures of the training with the Drone.