LIIDLII KUE/FORT SIMPSON - Raising his voice so he could be heard over the noise of the nearby helicopter, Donald Lomen seemed unfazed by what he'd just done.

Joseph Villeneuve Jr. of Fort Simpson prepares to drop to the ground while practising hover exits, a requirement of the yearly S100 training for fire crews. - Roxanna Thompson/NNSL photo

Just minutes before, Lomen, a member of the Deh Cho 6 fire crew from Fort Liard, had unbuckled his seatbelt and slid towards the open door of a helicopter that was hovering between three and five feet above the ground. Lomen then carefully climbed backwards out the door onto the helicopter's landing skids until he could safely drop to the ground. Hunched over, he then walked away from the still hovering machine.

"It's pretty neat," Lomen said.

While exiting a hovering helicopter isn't a requirement of most jobs, it can be just part of the day for members of the Deh Cho's six fire crews. To make sure the fire crews are prepared for what they could face on the fire line, the members are required to take the S100 crew training every year.

"The S100 is pretty hard," said Lomen, who's in his third year with Deh Cho 6.

Lomen was one of 21 people who took the three days of training in Fort Simpson from June 14 to 16. The course acts as a refresher at the start of the fire season, said Michael Tsetso, the regional fire technician with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, who led the training.

The participants started with a day and a half of classroom work during which they covered helicopter safety, how to fight fires and hazards that exist. Up next was the hover exit.

Fire crews take hover exit training every year but don't necessarily do a hover exit during the course of the fire season. Because of the dangers involved, any hover exit has to be approved by the duty officer, said Tsetso.

The exit is normally used by the first crew sent to the site of a new fire. If they are allowed to do the initial attack they need to do a hover exit to get to the ground because there's normally nowhere for the helicopter to land, Tsetso said.

Once on the ground, one or two crew members will roughly clear an area for the helicopter so it can land and drop off the gear. One person will then stay behind to groom the landing pad, he said.

While the hover exit can get adrenaline flowing, what comes next is considered by many to be even harder. For the physical fitness test, participants have to cover 4.8 km in 45 minutes or less while carrying a 45-pound pack. They then have to carry a pump 150 metres and once they drop it on the ground they have five minutes and 40 seconds to carry a bag of hose 200 metres and then stretch a folded hose full of water straight, fold it back over again and then repeat the process.

"It's pretty hard, especially if you don't prepare for it," said Tsetso.

If they don't pass the physical fitness portion, crew members can retry it in four weeks. None of the 21 members in the recent group will need the retest. They all passed and are ready for the fire season.

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