West Salem High School hosts live fire training for high school students

A controlled burn at a school fire training tower Friday afternoon means that eleven West Salem High School students will be able to graduate as certified firefighters. 

It was the state’s first live burn training held at a high school, part of the school’s fire science program. West is the only high school in Oregon with a burn tower onsite, school officials said.

The exercise required students to don full protective equipment and enter a burning tower at the school’s northwest corner, where they sprayed hoses onto the ceiling to learn how falling water would affect the flaming hay and pallets below.

The fire reached about 700 degrees.

“Until you’re in a room and you feel the heat burning your ears — there’s no simulating that,” said teacher Jennifer Stanislaw, a volunteer firefighter and paramedic who has led the fire program at West since its inception.

The students — six seniors and five juniors — have spent all year training for the exercise.

“It was awesome,” senior Amaya Huggins said, her body still vibrating with adrenaline after she emerged from the tower. She shed her mask and air tank and had her blood pressure checked by classmates training to become emergency medical technicians.

Huggins said the exercise was about what she expected, but added it was “very eye opening to see how a fire burns.” She’s attending college in the fall at Northwest Nazarene University in Idaho and plans to become a nurse, but also intends to volunteer as a firefighter.

Students entered the tower in teams, with two instructors and three or four students inside at a time. On exit, they guzzled water, shed protective layers and swapped air tanks with classmates who were up next.

West got a fire training tower added to its emergency services wing about a decade ago, a few years after the program opened.

Students and instructors have used it to simulate rescues and used smoke machines, but they’ve never set a fire inside.

Doing so took a stack of paperwork to get approvals from the district and other agencies, and more than 40 volunteers from three fire agencies — Seal Rock, Dayton and Spring Valley — who entered with students, checked equipment and made sure the exercise remained safe.

West also had to purchase new protective equipment for participating students, since the program had previously used donated gear that wasn’t in shape for live fire exercises.

Stanislaw said about 250 students have graduated from the program since it opened. Earning a firefighter certification will allow them to begin working at fire agencies quickly after leaving high school, though they’ll still need to complete agency-specific training academies.

Some students join the program because they’re interested in the subject matter, even if they have other career goals. Sometimes, the emergency services program is the only part of school they look forward to, she said.

One of the program’s goals is to teach students about fire culture and the idea of service above self.

Stanislaw intends to make the live burn an annual exercise. She beamed as she talked about the volunteers and graduates who came back to help students get the experience.

“I’m truly blessed,” she said.

Correction: Firefighters and students wore air tanks, not oxygen tanks. Salem Reporter apologizes for the error.

Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.

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