VIDEO: The Manchester Fire Department went offroad on Wednesday in a training that will be essential for their work day-to-day. About a decade ago, the department acquired two Utility Terrain Vehicles, or UTVs, to use for calls that range from medical incidents to brush fire response.
โEvery shift, every company goes through a course with one of our UTV instructors,โ said Battalion Chief Matt Leroux, the training officer at the Manchester Fire Department. As a town, Manchester has a lot of challenging topography that firefighters must navigate, from wooded areas to steep, hilly hiking paths. Leroux noted that the department now has a dedicated trail, three-quarters of a mile long, right by their maintenance facility that each member of the department is trained on annually. โWe have two UTVs in Manchester โ one of them is set up for brush fire response to help us get into tough to reach areas of town, the other is set up for medical [calls] — taking people out of different areas,” Leroux said. “These vehicles help us get into tight spots that it would take us a long time that it would take for firefighters to get in by foot.โ
Firefighters first go through a one-hour classroom refresher and then hit the trails on a UTV. The course can be completed in an afternoon. โWe have a lot of hiking trails between Case Mountain and the โRails to Trailsโ system, so it allows us to get to people or to fire incidents in remote areas a lot quicker,โ said Manchester Lieutenant Christopher Roy after going through the trails. As is always the case in any firefighting training course, the UTV training comes down to saving time. โAll those little seconds add up to minutes and that sometimes is the difference between life and death,” Leroux said.
