June 1 - 4, 2010:

The shifts at Station 23 took a few hours in the morning of each shift to get some rope rescue training.  This training was headed by Lt. K. Hamilton and it was conducted at Patapsco State Park.  The goal was to obtain a refresher on rope rescue where lowering and raising a rescuer was accomplished.

May 10 - 13, 2010:

All shifts at Station 23 had an opportunity to get back to the basics and do some fire training at the departments Fire Training Academy in Millersville.  Each shift did several evolutions during the training activity.  Other companies, (Co.'s 3 (Riva), 26 (S. Glen Burnie) & 42 (Deale)), that were on-duty for their designated shift came up and trained with Station 23.

April 27th - April 30th:

Each shift from Station 23 took time out of the daily routine to get some trench training.  To change things up, the station was able to use the trench training prop at Howard County Fire Academy in Marriottsville, Maryland.  With this training, it was great to be able to freshen up the skills of the veterans, plus it was a great opportunity for the newly qualified personnel to strenthen thier skills.  A huge thank you goes out to Howard County Fire Department for letting us use thier training facility during this time.

Memebers of HEAT on 'A' shift at Station 23 had another great opportunity to practice thier skills, as well as basket and stokes baskets operations with the Maryland State Police Aviation Division at Martins State Airport (home of MSP Trooper 1).  There were several pilots that had to do thier annual check-offs so the crew on-duty at Station 23 had plenty of flight time, as well as practicing thier skills with the helicopter crew.  A huge thank-you goes out to M.S.P. Aviation for letting us be a part of the team.

During the second week of March, all shifts at Station 23 reviewed thier skills of confined space.  For a few hours in the morning, each shift went to the Training Academy in Millersville and work a scenario of a full operation of a confined space incident.  Training went well and was a complete success.

On a beautiful spring type of a day, 'A' shift took advantage of the warm weather to practice skills using the hydraulic tools that are used for any type of structural collapse incident.  The station had some left over slabs of concrete that were used from the open house event from last fall.  All the heavy duty tools were used and everybody on-duty that day at the station took turns practicing on each tool. 

With boating season soon approaching, 'A' shift from Station 23 had an opportunity to use the pool @ The Woods Community Center in Severna Park to practice patient packaging of any possible boating accident or swimming accident victims that could possibly still be in the water.  Training was a success, and many thanks go to The Woods Community Center for letting us use thier pool.

The spring hoist training cycle was started with MSP Aviation at the Andrews AFB hangar of Trooper 2.  The crew from Jones Station met with Trooper 2 personnel and reviewed the procedures in the hangar for the static evolutions.  Then the personnel went outside and worked through each of four evolutions: rescue basket deployment, bare hook tending, Stokes deployment/Stokes packaging, and team deployment/retrieval.  Trooper 7 covered for Trooper 2 during the evolutions.

With the weather being so nice, A shift set up a hazmat scenario behind the station for some of the newer members to get some suit time.  The leak tree was hooked up and the spill began.

The crew worked through the problem from start to finish discussing the procedures to be followed in a real incident.  Two personnel were set up in level A suits with the tools necessary to stop the leaks.  Pipe clamps, pipe sleeves, golf tees, and wooden plugs  were used to stop the leaks from various holes in the piping.  Gear was cleaned up and stowed, ready for another call. 

In preparation for the K9 test weekend that will be held, "A" shift had an opportunity to go to the USAR Training Site in Linthicum to work / train on rigging and directing operations.  A 40-ton crane was used at the site.  The entire crew took turns in each position of the rigging and directing operation, as it was unique that this was available for the shift.