Firefighters from both Eastern and Western Salisbury fire companies were at the former Western Salisbury Elementary School April 18 for their regular Monday night training session. The firefighters, under controlled medical and operating conditions, practiced performing firefighting tasks using their self-contained-breathing-apparatus gear. The volunteers had their vital medical statistics checked and recorded, then given a number of standard physical exertion tasks to perform. The training was to establish individual baseline measures of the number of minutes each firefighter could expect their air tank supply to last under simulated interior firefighting conditions. While the tanks nominally hold 45 minutes of breathable air under compression, the real time a firefighter can operate off their air tank gear varies according to several conditions - including the exertion required, temperature inside a burning structure and individual weight and breathing patterns. RIGHT: Western Salisbury Volunteer Fire Company Chief Joshua Wells performs a rescue maneuver with a heavy, life-size rescue mannequin. Press Photo by Jim Marsh