Agoura Hills CERT Beats the Heat at Invitationals

Rescuing a victim pinned under a 700-pound object using a pry bar, performing triage after a bus acciden, and searching a four-story darkened building with a surprise basement for multiple victims were just a few of the challenges the Agoura Hills Community Emergency Response Team faced Saturday as part of the Burbank Fire Department's 2010 CERT Invitational. 

Teams from Agoura Hills, Burbank, Los Angeles, Redondo Beach, NBC Universal and the LA County Sheriff's Department were judged by a panel of experts and tested in a number of skill stations—fire suppression, victim triage, search and rescue, and cribbing and victim extrication. Awards were given for the highest scoring team at each station. Agoura Hills CERT placed first in fire suppression and third overall.

"The city is extremely proud of the accomplishments of the team during this event," said Agoura Hills administrative analyst Chris Dodd, who received an invitation to the competition in mid-July and said he decided right away that CERT should participate. "I felt this was a perfect opportunity to learn and gauge the skill level of the team." 

Six Agoura Hills CERT Disaster Response Team members would participate—some with as many as five plus years of training and others as few as nine months, according to Dodd. Bill Novik was one of the more experienced.

"We approached this competition more as a learning opportunity than something to win," said Bill Novik, one of the team's more experienced members. "And being our first competition, we were definitely nervous about it. We didn't really know what to expect."

During the fire suppression event, the entire team completed a basic written exam. Two members were then asked to demonstrate proper procedures to suppress a gasoline fire using fire extinguishers in a training pit.

Teams were scored based on results of the written exam, visual identification of various fire extinguishers and fire suppression techniques. 

"We are all thrilled to have done this well, given the high quality of the teams in the competition," Novik said. "I think it gives us all a bit more confidence that we'll really be able to help our community if we are called upon."

Dodd was proud of his team's achievements as well.

"Over the past several years, the team has worked hard to sharpen their community emergency response skills to do the greatest good for the most people in the event of an emergency," he said. "This competition was a great tool to measure just how effective the team could be for the residents of Agoura Hills in an emergency."