The volunteers of the Warren Fire Department spent a recent weekend honing their skills with the help of some former locals who now reside on Long Island in New York, but return regularly to provide their expertise to their peers remaining in their hometown.

The training sessions were overseen by Firehouse Training Plus, a company owned and operated by John "Chip" Bancroft and his father, Louie, both of whom are from Warren and were once volunteer firefighters here.

They were joined by Chip's son, Chris, and Joe Milton, who is former Bristol firefighter. It was the second time in the last few years the Firehouse crew returned to help WFD members brush up on their techniques. They also led a series in April of 2023.

"They're not just firefighters themselves, but they're also former residents of the town and members of the department," WFD Chief James Sousa said of the Firehouse crew. "They want to give back to the community where they started. It's not just a business for them. It's a passion. They enjoy training and teaching others what they've learned themselves."

Sousa, now in his eighth year as the Warren fire chief and 37th overall on the department's duty roster, along with town fire marshal Matt Primiano were among a group of some 25 local volunteers who participated in the two-day event.

The intent of the training, according to Sousa, was to "give my people the knowledge of their equipment, their gear and the confidence to know how to use it in a high stress environment."

Sousa continued, "The training our firefighters received is very critical to what they do. The idea is to continue to build off what they learned with future training and continue to strengthening their abilities to best be prepared to serve the residents of Warren."

The weekend began with a presentation and discussion session on Friday night followed the next day with simulated response exercises.

Friday's focus included officer development, search and rescue, self rescue, ropes and knots and fire behavior. Saturday's activities included props emulating the layout of a house, which served as training to evacuate residents as well as firefighters, themselves, from difficult situations.

The actual physical training simulated a smoked out environment by darkening the masks of the firefighters to create a zero visibility situation, just as could occur during a fire. Mannequins were used to practice human search patterns and drag techniques.

The self-preservation component included how firefighters might attempt to extricate themselves out of a narrow opening, so a gap was cut 16 inches wide as might be needed to escape between wall joists. Also included were hands-on review and practice of emergency rescue/medical procedures.

Key to the latter scenario, which might someday prove vital to one of his volunteers, Sousa explained was the intermittent use and removal of their breathing apparatus.

He continued, "those are the techniques for a firefighter in a self rescue should they get in trouble inside of an entrapped building. Basically, that's simulating us breaking up sheet rock inside of a room and then finding a way to crawl through the 16 inch wide space to get into the next room to hopefully have an escape route from a dangerous situation.


"And by doing that, they maintain the air supply the whole time. So it's a technique of getting their air pack off, pushing it through the hole first, keeping the mask on their face and crawling through with all of their gear on through that very narrow opening. Then being able to put the gear pack back on, get back and continue on their way."

The special training sessions didn't mark an end to how the Warren Fire Department goes about its preparedness. It's a continuation of how they ready themselves on a regular basis.

"We bring in an outside group to provide the training for us, but we train monthly, weekly," Sousa said. "We're always doing something in town. But to have something special like this, once every couple years, it's always good to get a perspective of an outside instructor."


Sousa said part of getting the word out about the training is so that the larger community knows members of the department are receiving "very critical training and we will build off that with future trainings" and that they "continue to strengthen their abilities on a regular basis."

For that, the chief credited all of the department volunteers that gave of themselves to participate in the Firehouse Training Plus seminar.


"I can't thank enough the men and women of Warren Fire and Rescue who took time out of their busy lifestyle, time away from their families to spend a Friday evening and a Saturday bettering themselves," Sousa said. "They did this to not only make themselves better, but also for the betterment of the residents of Warren."