During December 2020 and January 2021 Ridge VFD members had the opportunity to participate in live fire interior burning with houses that were donated to us for training purposes from our community. Providing training to members as been a challenge during this pandemic. We have done numerous online training module training provided by our insurance company and plan to do some drills via Zoom in the upcoming months. However, firefighting is a profession that requires hands on skills training to be proficient at what we do. Using the CDC requirements of social distancing, mask wearing and training in small groups we are able to perform practical exercises like these house burns.

We would like to thank our community for donating structures for us to be able to perform these training burns. Our members are able to learn advancement of handlines, different types of fire behavior, ventilation techniques, overhaul techniques, reading smoke, Self contained breathing apparatus operation, air management, ladders, small tool operation, water supply, pumping and many other topics as well. If you have a structure that you would like to consider for donation, please contact the station at 301-872-5571. We will come out and look at the structure to make sure for the safety of our members that it's sound enough for us to train in.