Montgomery County sentinel., 1946-10-03
BY Alice Crew Baker

the Prince Georges County Vol
unteer Firemen's Association, al
Eranchville. John McBrown Of
Seat Pleasant was elected presi.
dent Of the Association.
/ On September 28 there will be
another celebration for firemen
wnen the new building of the Fire
Extension Service of the Univers-
ity Of Maryland will be dedicated.
This is the red brick building with
tall white pillars that faces the
Washington Baltimore Boule-
ward just opposite the University
OF Maryland campus. The fire ex-
tension work is in charge of
Chief J. w. Just.
For those who are statistically
minded, we may say that this
building cost in excess of $160,000.
Il has multitude of purposes.
The ground floor will house the
College Park Dept. with space for
: pieces of apparatus, though at
present we have only 2 pieces.
There is garage space for cars in
the day, which is convertible for
a class room or meeting place in
the evening. There are also, on the
ground floor, a hose drying room,
with rack for drying by heat, a
kitchen, lavatcries, and "smoke
ROOM" The smoke room, fireproof
of course, has windows on several
sides, through which one may
watch what goes on in there. To
teach the use of gas masks in
fires, smoky fire is built on the
cement floor. When the smoke is
dense, firemen wearing gas
masks, are given saws, and told
t. 90 in and saw a piece of wood.
The mask wearer learns, among
other things, that with his limited
oxygen and trying to saw his way
into a smoke filled room, his
strength is by no means equal to
his normal strength.
On the second floor, Chief Just
and his assistants have their Of
fices. There is also a large class
room with blackboards, a bedroom
for any guest fire chiefs, mimeo-
graph room where Fire Extension
publications are gotten out, and
room for the study of various ex-
chemical firefighting,
fuse boxes, transformers, etc. The
fire fighter must knowgs electric
poles, and what they have. ON their
cross arms. To this endk actual
cross arms are set tup in this
school to teach firemen how to re-
cognize the high voltage wires.
Models are also shown of
houses. In the models, fires may
be built in the basement so that
tie course of smoke through the
house may be studied. For ex-
ample, you may have a small fire
ir your basement, say $4,000
damage done. The firemen, you
say, chopped hole in your roof,
which seemed quite unnecessary,
hut the fireman knows that if
there is a great deal of smoke in
the cellar, he cannot enter, or even
see what is burning, but let him
cut hole in the roof, and i'm
mediately a draft is created that
carries the smoke up the stairs,
and the fireman can enter and
fight the fire of burning burlap
bags in your cellar.
All kinds of extinguishers are
studied in this fire extension
school. These are, for the most
part, sent in as gifts from the
manufacturers.
Also actual hose carrying and
flame fighting is practiced in the
brick tower attached to this new
building. The several stories of
the tower have cement floors and
each has fire escape, like a
tenement house. In the yard, is a
fire plug, also a $4,000 gallon els
tern. This represents lake or
river or other reservoir of water.
Drawing on this supply, the hoses,
IN practice, are carried up the fire
escape for practice. But $4,000
gallons is lot of water to pour
over building, in practice, so a
concave water shed, or back stop
las been built just behind the re-
servoir. When the hose has been
carried up, say to the top, the
nozzle is aimed at this backstop
and the water returned to the els
tern.
There is also an hydraulic labor
atory where can be studied diff
ferent types of nozzles, pumps,
sprinkler systems, etc.
Besides firemen, other groups
will be taught by the Fire Exten-
/ 90