GREENFIELD — Paul Martin folded his arms across his chest as he surveyed the crowd.
They came from different places, he said — from east coast metropolises like Boston, to seaside cities like Hollywood and mountain-covered, fly-over towns like Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
But had the backs of their heavy jackets not proclaimed their homesteads, no one would have been the wiser.
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They’d work as one, these firefighters, Martin said. They’d learn and listen, share ideas and swap advice. Because they had a common desire to return to their homes better and braver than when they’d left.
Hundreds of firefighters from across the nation flocked to Hancock County this week as members of the Greenfield Fire Territory and the Sugar Creek Township Fire Department hosted training sessions as part of a week-long international conference being held in Indianapolis.
The Fire Department Instructor’s Conference — nicknamed FDIC — is an annual meeting of more than 35,000 firefighters, paramedics and EMTs from across the globe, who come to Central Indiana for educational talks, hands-on training and other various exhibits and events.
FDIC organizers utilize fire departments around Central Indiana as sites for its training sessions. Though Sugar Creek Township has been chosen to host trainings before, the honor was a first for Greenfield and solidified the department’s ambition to become a regional training site.
Hosting an FDIC training is an exciting and welcomed milestone — one the department has been working toward for years, said Greenfield firefighter Corey Breese, the department’s spokesman.
Earlier this month, the department unveiled its newly remodeled Station 22, located on New Road, that features high-tech classrooms, where firefighters from across the region can hold lectures and exams.
Before that, the department built a training facility behind the New Road station made out of nine metal shipping containers, similar to those carried by cargo trains. The containers can be stacked and maneuvered into makeshift structures, complete with rooms, stairs and rooftops, and set ablaze or doused with water for practice.
FDIC used Greenfield’s training structure, as well as a barn owned by the Sugar Creek department, to conduct trainings this week in Hancock County.
The firefighters who visited New Palestine practiced emergency rescue techniques, officials said, and Greenfield’s facility allowed firefighters from as nearby as Indianapolis and as far away as Hong Kong to practice moving through large commercial structures.
Martin, who retired from the Chicago Fire Department with more than 20 years of service under his belt, ran the training in Greenfield this week.
He and other instructors set up three skills stations: at the first, firefighters practiced different techniques for cutting through overhead garage doors; at the second, they learned how to use ropes to navigate to and from the exits of large burning buildings; and at the third, they took turns lugging heavy, water-filled firehoses around the property.
Because they never know what the next emergency call will be, firefighters have to be ready for anything, Martin said. Emergency calls to houses are more common than those to commercial buildings; but firefighters need to be ready to enter those larger structures and maneuver their way through quickly and without fear, he said.
Finding a safe way into the buildings might require them to use a saw to cut through heavy metal doors or walls, Martin explained. The structure might be so big, so complex, they need to use ropes to guide them in and out safely.
And the fire hoses they’ll need to douse large commercial fires are thicker, heavier and pump out more gallons of water per minute than the hoses typically used at house fires. Firefighters have to be ready to carry those bigger hoses, sometimes for yards at a time, and properly position them to put out the flames, Martin said.
Once FDIC in complete, firefighters can take the skills they’ve learned back to their hometowns, apply them to buildings there and teach the other members of their departments.
During downtime at the training, its common to hear firefighters from similar-sized cities trading tips about what works best for them back home, said Indianapolis firefighter Jay Settergren, who assisted Martin in running the training in Greenfield. But sometimes it’s the bigger departments teaching members of smaller departments a trick, or vice versa, he said.
That idea-sharing is what makes FDIC invaluable, Settergren said. The annual conference fosters learning experiences that only make firefighters better, he said.