Some Hollywood showmanship was applied to teaching firefighters from across California and points beyond how to keep movies and TV locations safe Thursday.
At the Burbank Fire Department’s helipads in the city’s northern hills, dozens of aspiring on-set fire safety officers completed an annual, three-day training program by watching industry experts shoot firearms, blow off pyrotechnics and set a stunt man ablaze—then safely put him out.
“The CAL FIRE Office of the State Fire Marshal offers a leadership role in training and educating the California Fire Service in motion picture and entertainment safety,” explained Filming Liaison and Deputy State Fire Marshal Ramiro Rodriguez, who oversees the only such program in the nation. “Our job is to make sure that they have an understanding of film production safety and fire safety, all the laws, the regulations and the permitting process that associates with pyrotechnic special effects in film and television production.”
Rodriguez, who works with the California Film Commission out of its Hollywood Boulevard office, noted that the three-day seminar has taken place for more than 20 years, hosted by various local cities that see substantial amounts of filmmaking within their borders.
While eager-to-learn members of fire departments from Georgia, Tennessee, New Mexico, Alberta, Canada and elsewhere came in to learn best practices for how to work with productions in their jurisdictions, the majority of attendees were Californians.
That’s where the results of the program have been easiest to see, Rodriguez said.
“For the purposes of California, because that is our primary focus, little to no injuries or accidents associated with film or television productions” have occurred since his training began, Rodruguez pointed out. “So the coordination, the training, the education, we have reason to believe, provides a safe and successful film experience on a daily basis.”
Two young men from the Burbank FD revealed how much they’d learned about proper permitting, on-set safety and interacting with production crews in the past three days.
“I think the biggest thing is just knowing the municipal codes, then knowing the codes we can enforce and the codes that change for the movie industry,” said Ryan Ingraldi, whose been with BFD about six months and hoped to leave the seminar with the state certificate that qualifies him to be a motion picture/television fire safety officer. “What we’d see in everyday life as a code violation would be allowed for temporary purposes on a movie set so they can get their shots. That’s a huge thing to know.”
Ingraldi’s fellow BFD six-monther Cole Willison sounded awestruck by all he’d been learning.
“It’s our third and final day out here right now, and we’ve learned a ton of stuff,” Willison said. “It’s been three long days of class and it’s really crazy, all the stuff that goes into films that you really wouldn’t think about. Here in Burbank there are tons of productions going on, many movie studios. Us, just as basic firefighters on the floor, we are required to be certified as fire safety officers to be able to go out to those productions, be on set and know what to look for. The main thing we’re learning in this class is to be able to identify both fire and life safety hazards and abate them, basically stop that problem before it starts while they’re out there filming.”
After his team demonstrated a dizzying array of flame-spouting, smoke-spewing and explosion-blasting technologies for the amused and enlightened firefighters, veteran stage and screen pyrotechnics operator Eric Elias explained why he’s taught at these seminars for more than seven years.
“When I started, there was a little bit of animosity between the fire authorities and the industry,” Elias revealed. “It might have stemmed from a lack of education on the enforcement side, but I’ve always discovered that the more they know the more comfortable they feel and the better we can work together. I find that if they show up and they have seen this stuff before, it is much, much easier to work throughout the day. They know what to expect, understand and accept our concerns. And they’re typically willing to take our advice on the safe conditions.”
The climactic demonstration at Thursday’s hilltop event was the “body burn” with stunt man Stephane Fiorenza.
“Generally, you don’t want to go until you’re hot, you want to go until you’re warm,” stunt pro Matt Anderson explained, along with reams of other details, about how a person on fire ought to be filmed, while Fiorenza was coated in various layers of natural fiber clothing (nylon and such ain’t good around flames), fire retardant and cooling gel. A flammable component was then brushed on over Fiorenza with a stick.
Four safety team members stood with CO2 (never chemical) extinguishers at various points along Fiorenza’s route as a stunt coordinator checked each of them for readiness. Then Fiorenza was lit with an acetylene torch.
He ran the pre-walked route flapping his arms, going down on his knees a few times, then after 18 seconds flattened onto the concrete helipad with his arms spread out, the cross position signal that he was ready to be extinguished. Three of the safety team people quickly moved in and did just that in a second or two. Smoldering hot spots on the stuntman’s pants and raincoat got extra hits.
Within moments, Fiorenza stood up, grinning.
Tim Smith and David LaCour both said they would head home to New Mexico with a wealth of new knowledge following their three days here in the movie capital.
“A lot of inspiration, a lot of contacts, a lot of scenarios, what to do on sets,” Smith, who’s with Albuquerque Fire Rescue and worked on “Breaking Bad,” said he’d be taking with him. “How to deal with certain situations where a director might want something that’s out of the ordinary, maybe more on the dangerous side, so we can work together to accomplish what needs to be done to get the shot.”
“We deal with the movie sets back in Albuquerque, and we never really deal with the hierarchy; the producer, the first assistant director or anything like that,” the AFD’s LeCour noted. “So we’ve learned to communicate well with them so we can keep everybody safe on the site. Also, with all these weapons demonstrations, I’ve never seen what an armorer does so I learned that. A lot of stuff here we sort of see, but not in depth.”
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