House fire provides dynamic opportunity for EJFR firefighters
Published 1:30 am Wednesday, April 1, 2026
PORT TOWNSEND — East Jefferson Fire Rescue conducted live training on an uninhabitable residential structure on Tuesday.
Staging for exercises started about 8 a.m. Focused exercises took place in different sections of the house, one crew at a time, throughout the day.
In addition to the East Jefferson Fire Rescue’s (EJFR) two off-duty crews being onsite, two Navy fire crews participated in the training.
The road leading up to the home, on the 1000 block of Umatilla Avenue, was cordoned off on either end.
Small fires were set in different sections of the house by instructors, and dummy victims were placed for rescue, EJFR Fire Chief Bret Black said.
“Their objective is to find the victim to put the fire out and communicate with command,” Black said. “We have a very choreographed and scripted process of how we do that. It’s about fine-tuning our craft of that communication, the tactics.”
Coordinating the movement of fire hoses as a team takes practice. They are heavy, a hundred PSI or more, a couple hundred gallons a minute, Black said.
As crews entered the home, black smoke billowed into the sky before settling over the Port Townsend residential neighborhood.
Crews spent five to 10 minutes at a time in the home, which lacked visibility, Black said.
“We’re practicing using our thermal imagers,” he continued. “They do know the layout, that’s the law. They don’t know where the fire is.”
The training curriculum is heavily regulated, Black said. All of the fires were started with stacks of shipping pallets, he added.
During a previous visit, EJFR crews conducted a blind exercise in the home with fake smoke, said Training Captain Trevor Bergen, who acted as incident commander for the event.
One of the Navy crews sat nearby the home, at the ready, listening to the radio in case support was needed.
Firefighters can be injured on training as easily as on real fires, Black said.
Another group of five firefighters ascended a ladder onto the roof, where one, carrying a chainsaw, cut three sides of a rectangle up, angling the material upward.
“As they climb up, they’re tapping the roof with tools to make sure they’re not (walking on soft spots),” Community Risk Manager Robert Wittenberg said.
Creating vertical and horizontal ventilation is a common tactic for firefighting, Wittenberg said. Horizontal ventilation can be created by putting a fan near a window or by using a fire hose to create hydrological ventilation.
EJFR tries to shut power off to structures when possible, Wittenberg said. In bigger events, Jefferson County PUD will remove the power from poles. Service wires can burn in large events.
Following their exercises, firefighters headed to a rehab station where a crew of volunteer medics checked their vitals. They would not be allowed to return to exercises until their vitals were cleared to near baseline.
Black stressed the value of this kind of unique real-world scenario for the crews, whose typical training opportunities occur at a training facility at EJFR station 2 on Jacob Miller Road.
“This is really, really rare to do it in a home,” he said. “(The typical training is) in a metal box that becomes very sterile. We all know how the box is going to behave, and this is much more dynamic.”
The training helped EJFR meet Washington Administrative Code (WAC) requirements for firefighters to go into a live fire environment once every three years, Black said.
While EJFR did have another live training at Gibbs Lake last year, the opportunity for such training can be rare and is random, Wittenberg said.
Homeowners Jonathan Mobley and Roxie Jane Hunt purchased the home two years ago with plans to move into it eventually. Later, it became apparent that the home was uninhabitable.
In considering their options for demolition, Kyle Macleod, owner of Emerald Excavation Inc., recommended reaching out to EJFR.
The process involved a fair amount of preparatory work, including asbestos abatement, carpet removal, debris removal and preparing the trees nearest to the house for the fire.
“I didn’t intend for this to become such a bountiful thing, but clearly these guys are getting some mileage out of this,” Mobley said. “Because we live in the wildland urban interface, these guys need as much training as they can get. This has been a win-win for everybody.”
Mobley credited Bergen and EJFR Deputy Chief Pete Brummel with the many hours of preparation that went into the event. Bergen and Brummel removed the roof.
The property has some open space and forested land nearby, a factor in allowing the exercise to move through the permitting process.
During the final safety check of the basement, first one and then five kittens were found. They had been in the house as exercises proceeded above their heads throughout the morning.
The kittens were removed and, after a neighbor brought a carrying case to the site, Port Townsend Police Department officers transported the kittens to the Humane Society of Jefferson County. The kittens’ mother was not located.
A lunch spread from Mo-Chilli BBQ was provided by the homeowners, as was coffee from Sunrise Coffee Company.
Soon after lunch, a fire intended to consume the whole structure was started in the basement of the house.
It’s always interesting to watch how quickly that fire spreads in a house, Wittenberg said. All of the furnishings had been removed. Typical modern furnishings are very flammable and toxic, Wittenberg added.
“It gets to the point of being unsafe within two or three minutes,” he said. “This is a good reinforcement of why fire prevention and taking steps to be alerted to a fire is so critically important.”
The event was supported by the Port Townsend Police Department, which had a drone operator and some officers onsite.
Jefferson County Commissioner Heather Dudley Nollette, Port Townsend City Manager John Mauro, EJFR Fire Commission Chair Deborah Stinson and vice chair Jeannie Price also were onsite.
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@peninsuladailynews.com.
