YOUNGSTOWN — If saving lives as a firefighter looks glamorous, high school firefighting students may have had their minds changed Monday as they participated in several search and rescue exercises at a practice home on East Lucius Avenue.

Twenty-eight students attending the Choffin Career and Technical and the Mahoning County Career and Technical centers got practice at crawling through the house on their stomachs in nearly total darkness while keeping one hand on an interior wall or the leg of a fellow firefighter.

“You get in there and you can get disoriented,” said Lt. Courtney Kelly of the Youngstown Fire Department. Learning the technique is “imperative for their survival.”

The exercises were carried out at a vacant home owned by the Mahoning County Land Bank that will be demolished Dec. 2. It provided the perfect place for the students to train.

The land bank has been providing such homes in recent years to other organizations in addition to the career and technical centers, such as the Youngstown Fire Department, police canine unit and Mahoning County SWAT team, said land bank inspector Steven Brown.

Kelly, who also is program coordinator for the Choffin High School Fire Academy, said the exercise teaches the students what to do in “the worst conditions you can think of” as a firefighter.

By closing off the windows and doors, the large two-story house became dark inside, making it difficult for a firefighter to know how to get back out of a house once he or she is inside.

With a team of two firefighters crawling across the floor, they were able to practice carrying out a “quick but thorough search” and find their way back out, Kelly said.

Firefighters using a fire hose have a built-in method of finding their way back out, she noted, because the hose leads to the way back out.

To up the ante, the instructors from the Youngstown Fire Department added another obstacle for the second exercise — artificial smoke created by using a machine that pumps water vapor throughout the house.

Before the students entered the building, Youngstown Fire Department Lt. William Palma gathered the students around him and gave clear instructions on what they would be doing.

“You will mask up at the door,” he said in response to a question from one student. Then they paired up and waited their turn.

Two of the paired students were Emojean Simmons of MCCTC and West Branch Local Schools and Dominic Smith of MCCTC and Boardman Local Schools.

When their commander gave the signal, they added their breathing apparatus, helmet and then gloves, not necessarily an easy task in itself. Then he gave the command to enter the now smoke-fille home.

“Come on. Let’s go,” the commander said in an urgent voice. A tense, new experience just got intense.

“It’s extremely challenging for high school kids,” Kelly said of the training. It’s meant to be challenging because, “When they are finished, they are the best of the best,” she said. It needs to be challenging to “make sure they are prepared.”

“This is a more realistic situation for us,” Smith said of having a real house in which to train instead of the classrooms at their school.

Elijah Smith of Choffin and Chaney High School said he was encouraged to go into the program by Kelly, who thought he would be a “good fit.”

He said he also thinks it might be a good fit.

“I feel if I was in the situation where I had to risk my life to save somebody, I know I would do it,” he said.

As the four-hour exercise wore on, the students also practiced with thermal imaging equipment that shows where the fire hot spots are and helps them locate fire victims and fellow firefighters.

There were no real flames of smoke in Monday’s training, but that will come in the spring, Kelly said. If the students pass the class, they can test for a state firefighting certification.

erunyan@tribtoday.com