Several fire districts participated in community emergency response team training for local residents recently.

CERT is about preparing people to help other people, rescuer safety and doing the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

North County Fire has offered this course for the past several years to help their local community members prepare for large-scale disasters, such as floods, earthquakes, mud slides, flu outbreaks and others.

Lake Stevens and Arlington fire departments and Marysville Fire District collaborated on a CERT Training this spring that ran for seven consecutive Fridays at local fire stations.

At the end of the training, CERT culmination pulls together all of the skills that the students learned over the weeks and puts them to the test.

The main scenario was set on having an earthquake in the early evening on a Friday night. The first break out is that of a multi-story building with many “victims” needing assistance in getting to the ground floor for treatment.

The second break out was that of a house fire in the neighborhood, and finally in the third break out, fire sets off an explosion pinning multiple victims under heavy pieces of wood and concrete so that the student have to work together to lift the pieces off of the victims by “cribbing.”

“The finale is all about real life situations and making them more comfortable with their newly acquired skills,” said Robert Marshall of Lake Stevens Fire Department and one of the CERT instructors.

The CERT finale included students who went through a CERT class with North County Fire/EMS that ran simultaneously to the Tri-Fire class.

“We would like to encourage anyone who is interested in making a difference in their community to look into this course. We would like also to thank the community in all their support in working together in disaster preparedness,” said Christian Davis, battalion chief of operations for North County Regional Fire Authority.