Lincoln County Fire Academy officers traveled to Monhegan the weekend of Aug. 24 and 25 to provide training in drafting and pump operations for island firefighters.
“Hopefully this will lead to an ongoing collaboration between the academy and the Monhegan firefighters,” Lincoln County Fire Academy President Mike Santos said.
The academy already plans to return in October with a training exercise. “We’re going to go out there and when we get there, we’re going to spring it on them, we’re going to say, ‘This is the scenario, do it,'” Santos said.
Somerville Fire Chief Mike Dostie, Bristol Fire Chief Paul Leeman Jr. and Santos ran the training Saturday. Bristol Assistant Fire Chief Neil Kimball and Capt. Ken Vinal of the Bremen Fire Department joined Santos for Sunday’s training.
The firefighters practiced drafting water out of the harbor and the ice pond on the island, Santos said, and pumped water out of the island trucks.
The academy’s expectations for the training “were met and exceeded,” Santos said, and the mainland firefighters “had a great time” on the island.
Monhegan faces some unique challenges, like aging equipment and water supply, but in other ways deals with the same challenges all volunteer departments face.
“It’s money, manpower and mandates that we are all under the gun for,” Santos said. “The challenges are the same; it’s just a different degree.”
The island fishermen and laborers who make up the fire department benefit from the advice and experience of the mainland firefighters, Monhegan Fire Chief Kole Lord said.
“It was very kind of those folks to really take us under their wing,” Lord said.
The academy’s visit to the island provided the “encouragement and energy we needed to try to be a little more productive with our fire brigade,” Lord said.
“There aren’t a lot of people here and there certainly are a lot of areas where, if there was a fire, there would be some problems,” Lord said.
Lord looks forward to future training events on the island, including the possible exercise in October. A drill would give the firefighters a good opportunity to see how they would react in an emergency, he said.
“It doesn’t matter how fluid we are, we’re still going to show up with what we have and do the best we can to make the situation safe,” he said.
Hardy Boat Cruises provided free travel to and from the island for academy instructors, Santos said.
The Lincoln County Fire Academy provides “safe and effective training for the firefighters of Lincoln County” and surrounding areas, Santos said, including Basic Fire School and Firefighter I and II classes.
“We have a lot of experience,” Santos said. “There’s a great bunch of instructors and resources around us. We enjoy doing it.”
