The Rancho Murieta training facility was a disaster scene this past week. Firefighters collaborated on an Urban Search and Rescue mission to carefully extract victims stranded in cars crushed under debris.

The victims in this case, mannequins, were successfully removed from the wreckage. Firefighters treat this simulation as an actual disaster so they will be prepared when they get the call.

For the past four years, firefighters from all over California have been gathering in the Sacramento area for a heavy equipment and rigging training course that culminated this past Wednesday.

L.A. City, L.A. County, Oakland, Elk Grove, Roseville, Sacramento City and the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District all participated in a three-day training session focused on the setup of cranes and their operation in Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) situations.

Capt. Jay Coon is a 23-year veteran of the fire service currently working for the Sacramento Fire Department. He said the training was initially a preparation for natural disasters, such as earthquakes.

"We didn't know about terrorism when we first started this training," Coon said.

The program extends training to cover incidents such as September 11 in New York and the Oklahoma City bombing.

"We prepare people for the worst of the worst of a natural or man made disaster," said Coon, who participated in both events as a heavy rigger.

The scene of the training site is a barren facility with a collapsed building and a heap of steel beams and concrete slabs resting on top of cars.

"We basically build an artificial disaster," Coon said.

According to Dave DeWilde, the director of training at the Rancho Murieta training facility, firefighters engage in this simulated disaster with an end goal of removing mannequins from cars buried within the devastated area "without causing more damage or hurting yourself."

Coon said the first seventy-two hours rescuers are on the scene are critical, as most victims who will be rescued are saved in that timeframe. After that, it becomes a recovery mission.

"This is a good estimation," he said, adding that people can die within hours thus making the rescue futile. That is why DeWilde emphasized the importance of this specific training, saying it "teaches the firefighters to be able to communicate better and faster, so they can rescue people as fast as they can."

According to Coon, within the first few hours firefighters are on a scene, cranes can be set up "immediately if they are hydraulic cranes, or within hours for the bigger ones." He described the positives of using a crane as its ability to pick up a tremendous amount of weight. That's an asset," Coon said. Despite that, he added, "The bigger they are, the longer it takes to put them in service. You can spend as much as two days putting them together."

"This kind of training is vital, and it's sponsored by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Office of Emergency Services," Coon said. However, he maintained that, "We couldn't put this thing on if it wasn't for the community," describing the various companies that gave the trainers access to steel, cars and equipment.

"If they didn't support us,” Coon said, “it would be too costly to put this training on."