The recruits take a break to cool off between stints as an instructor makes some points. The trainees were from East Greenwich, Warwick and Tiverton.

The Providence Journal / Kathy Borchers

EAST GREENWICH — Practice makes perfect. And when it comes to training new firefighters, practice can mean the difference between life and death.

The weeks of boot camp for recruits from area fire departments have to include more than physical-fitness regimens, classroom time and drills with ladders and hoses.

In the end, there’s just no substitute for setting a building ablaze and sending the trainees in to do their job.

On a recent Thursday that seemed too hot for September, the fire departments from Warwick, East Greenwich and Tiverton teamed up at an abandoned ranch house on Division Road that had been donated to the East Greenwich Fire Department for training purposes.

Following the lead of senior officers, 4 of the 22 recruits pulled on their coats, overalls and boots and got ready to run into the burning building.

The exercises were conducted by Warwick Deputy Chief Stephen Hay and Peter Henrikson, deputy chief of the East Greenwich Fire District.

“It’s all about teamwork –– that’s what it comes down to,” Hay said as he and Henrikson seemed immune to the heat of the afternoon and the flames as they led drill after drill in the little white ranch that was starting to look a lot worse for wear.

It was as close to the real thing as you can get. Wooden palettes and mounds of hay were used to set fires in certain parts of the house and then it was up to the recruits to put them out.

They had to deal with unpredictability of the flames as they slipped behind the vinyl siding making it curl and shrink and sneaked under the eaves causing smoke to seep from the roof shingles. They had to learn to move quickly wearing more than 40 pounds of gear. They had to figure out how to pace their breathing so their air packs lasted more than 10 minutes.

And most of all, they had to learn to stick together on whatever crew they were assigned to, whether it was the ladder crew, the entry team, or the squad handling the engine pump and the tangle of hoses that crisscrossed the property.

“Whether or not the firefighters perform like a well-oiled machine or a scattered puzzle depends in large part on the training, guidance and encouragement they receive as recruit firefighters,” Henrikson said.

“Live fire-training … is instrumental in the development of firefighters’ abilities.”

Warwick Fire Chief Kevin Sullivan said having abandoned houses to burn is critical to firefighter training and because of the lack of availability of properties suitable for such purposes, departments have become good at working together to share facilities. “Not all fires are the same, and it’s the only way for recruits to really learn that,” Sullivan said.

He and Hay said that by fighting the training fires, the recruits learn to override old instincts and replace them with what they have learned so that the correct reaction becomes second nature. That became evident at the little white house on Division Road, when a firefighter who was part of a crew trying to get a ladder secured to the eaves over the breezeway, suddenly pulled off his helmet and face mask. It might have been because he was running out of air or because he couldn’t see well, but the reason didn’t matter to Deputy Chief Hay.

“Get down from there. You never, never take off your mask,” shouted Hay, who like Henrikson, was managing to keep an eye on all the recruits while watching to make sure the fire was being extinguished quickly enough.

Hay explained that with the flames sending temperatures inside a burning building in excess of 1,000 degrees, any firefighter who removes a face mask could die instantly from scorched lungs. A helmet that has been pulled off could leave a firefighter vulnerable to a falling timber, Hall said, and anytime a firefighter puts himself or herself in danger, he or she puts every other firefighter at the scene in danger as well.

Probably one of the hardest things, he said, is to teach young firefighters not to pull off their breathing masks even if the air supply is diminishing. It’s counterintuitive, he and Henrikson said, but the young firefighters have to learn that the correct response is to get out of the building.

Sullivan said the recent exercises in East Greenwich went well and that Warwick and other departments will continue to work together on training sites until there is a state training center for municipal departments.

Henrikson, who oversaw the three days of burning and final demolition of the Division Road home, said live training is one place where all skills “were put to the test,” and he was proud to report that “not one recruit suffered as much as a splinter.”

“This is a testament to how seriously we all take safety,” he said. And Henrikson and Sullivan said that is why every time a suitable property is available they will run the burn drills, again and again and again.

bpoliche@projo.com