When Town Councilor Robert Dellorco showed up at a fire on Milford's Birch Street on Monday, he didn't expect he'd get handed a set of bunker gear, told to suit up and then sent into the burning building.
"I thought I was going to be more of a spectator," he confided after emerging from the smoke.
He wasn't the only non-professional firefighter who took the plunge into the blaze that quickly transformed into a storm of hot, clinging black smoke. Congressman Jake Auchincloss and state Rep. Jeff Roy, D-Franklin, also both climbed into pounds upon pounds of turnout gear and joined the company that took on the fire.
It was all part of a training exercise set up by the Franklin Fire Department and hosted by the Milford Fire Department at its live burn building behind its station on Birch Street.
For Franklin firefighters, it was a chance to hone their firefighting skills. For the officials -- Auchincloss, Roy and Dellorco -- it was an opportunity to get firsthand insight into the dangerous work that firefighters do.