After last month’s deadly smoke incident on Metrorail at the L’Enfant Plaza station, the interim fire chief is promising changes after the firefighters union revealed that D.C. firefighters have received much less specialized training for Metro emergencies than other fire departments in the region, reports wjla.com.
WMATA’s Landover training site offers first responders courses in smoke and fire incidents, bomb blasts, terrorist and hostage situations, the release of chemical or biological agents, train collisions and other disasters.
Now, the interim D.C. fire chief has acknowledged that less than half of the department’s firefighters have received training for such emergencies.
Last year, out of about 1700 D.C. firefighters, only 100 got that training in a mock Metrorail tunnel. That is far fewer than more than 700 Fairfax County firefighters and more than 400 Montgomery County firefighters who participated in 2014.
The revelation baffled D.C. Council members at a hearing Thursday on last month’s yellow line incident.
One passenger was killed and more than 80 others were taken to hospitals with smoke inhalation after a train filled with smoke. The National Transportation Safety Board blames an electrical malfunction and investigators continue to look into the cause.
“I don’t think anybody expected that only 100 of our firefighters were trained in one year and we’ll step that up,” Mayor Muriel Bowser said. She spoke to reporters Friday after a graduation ceremony for nine D.C. paramedics turned firefighters at the D.C. Fire Department’s training academy in southwest Washington.
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