Coal Age Magazine - For nearly 100 years, Coal Age has been the magazine that readers can trust for guidance and insight on this important industry.
Issue link: https://coal.epubxp.com/i/277753
Instruction Guide IG7a also contains new exercises to assure practice on skills a team would need in a mine emergency, as well as expectations training. After a comment period that closed in late November 2013, dur- ing which MSHA received five comments from across the industry, the agency published the new information in the Federal Register and on its website. One of those comments was important to this discussion but largely ignored: an unnamed commenter stated that teams would be better trained if the training consisted of actually putting out a fire, being exposed to heat and dense smoke, and spending more time preparing for an actual emergency. In response, MSHA said it believes the exercises prescribed in IG7a will provide appropriate training in smoke, fire hose manage- ment and firefighting. Period. Another commenter said that IG7a should be revised to include a smoke tube exercise. That input was heard, with MSHA revising IG7a to include a smoke tube exercise in which tubes filled with a visible chemical smoke are opened and the escaping smoke is car- ried away by any air flow. "In the agency's experience, smoke tube training will help pre- pare teams to determine the ventilation direction and measure speed in areas with low air velocity, which may be encountered in a mine emergency," officials said. It is well known that the regulatory rules for mine rescue teams, particularly post-MINER Act, are fairly articulate and detailed, including distance limits for teams from mines and the number of competitions any one team must participate in during a given year. However, the skills of a mine rescue team and those of a fire brigade team have a broad gap. There is still a significant disconnect between requirements for mine rescue crews and those who train on firefighting techniques. Many mining companies and crews opt to polish their skills in this area largely on their own — perhaps to ensure complete comprehensive training for any emergency, or per- haps even out of that aforementioned fear. How long until these two important pieces of miner safety are viewed equally? Combating Fires with Training, Education The fire brigades that do exist in the mining community must have a place to learn and train, and thankfully there are options for those crews. One of them is the Kentucky Coal Academy's Mine Emergency Response Academy (MERA) in western Kentucky. Madisonville Community College, using the former Madisonville Community College technology campus, opened MERA in March 2011. It features a simulated mine offering an almost-real environ- ment to the underground coal mine as well as a Class A burn room that can also be utilized for structure fire education. The spotlight feature for fire brigades is the burn prop located inside the simulated operations, which school officials say closely incorporates the key tools and skills to fight and extinguish an actu- al mine fire. "One of the greatest components of a fire in an underground mine fire is to redirect the ventilating current to make control of heat and gasses generated. Our simulated mine, because of its concrete struc- ture, is designed to facilitate this skill," Kentucky Coal Academy fire brigade instructor Rick Caskey said, noting that the facility has been designed to attract crews from the Illinois Basin and beyond. MERA is funded through the Kentucky Coal Academy in partner- ship with the West Kentucky Workforce Investment Board and, in addition to mine rescue and command center training, offers a 16- hour instruction program for inexperienced fire brigade training as well as an eight-hour course for experienced teams and individuals. Just a few hours northwest of Madisonville in Ina, Ill., is the Rend Lake College Coal Mine Training Center, which includes a specific training center for both mine rescue and mine fires. The center opened in 2009, and the specialized training portion had its grand opening the following year. The 20,000-sq-ft center in southern Illinois was awarded about $2.7 million in federal and state aid for its design, engineering and construction, and also to provide equipment for teams to use such as a mock mine and faux smoke for rescue drills. The school's mining technology department has been bestowed Brookwood-Sago grant funds from MSHA on more than one occa- sion, and the most recent earmark is being used for an expansion at the firefighting facility. "The grant will be dual use, for both our coal mine students and civilian firefighters," dean Chris Nielsen said. "We get to use the local firefighters as our instructors, so our students learn from the best." An interesting aspect of RLC's mining program is that it was revamped in 2009 after a long history of success. At one point in the late 1970s and early 1980s, hundreds of students and 17 mining instructors were in the classroom around the clock, three shifts a day and seven days a week. It even boasted a 97% placement rate for those graduating the program. A strong of mine closures in the 1990s, tied largely to Clean Air Act amendments, left the market for inexperienced workers dry and the facility much less in demand. Today, however, from fire training to new and refresher opera- tions courses, RLC is one again bustling with activity. Even with the industry's challenging times, the Illinois Basin is enjoying healthy growth and those with certifications and associate's degrees are ready for any open spots in the region. "What this center does is centralize training for the coal mining industry," school president Charley Holstein said when the facili- ty opened in 2009. f i r e f i g h t i n g c o n t i n u e d 28 www.coalage.com March 2014 Rend Lake College in Ina, Ill., is just one facility that plays host to fire brigade and mien rescue training. (Photo courtesy of Rend Lake College) CA_pg26-29_V2_CA_pg46-47 3/11/14 9:22 AM Page 28