LAFD CERT Earthquake Drill in Sylmar
Widespread Structural Damage, Multiple Patients, Landslides, and Residents trapped or missing are just a few of the many challenges CERT Members faced during The Oakridge Community CERT Earthquake Exercise held March 9th, 2019.
Just over 120 CERT volunteers proudly representing Cities surrounding the Los Angeles area, with some as far as Arizona, converged on the Sylmar area of the San Fernando Valley joining LAFD CERT Members in putting their training to the test. Residents of the Oakridge Mobile Home Community simulating victims and nearby spectators attracted by the curiosity of an LAFD Helicopter overhead, experienced first hand the critical life saving skills CERT Training provides during this large scale simulation, before it’s really needed. Over a 4 hour span, CERT members performed operations consisting of Search and Rescue, Patient Triage, Disaster Medical Treatment, Communications, and Damage Assessments. Utilizing their CERT training, these dedicated volunteers successfully extracted simulated trapped victims, employing effective […]
Feb. 2019 – LAFD CERT Spotlight – John Gilbert
The Los Angeles Fire Department CERT Program is proud to introduce LAFD CERT Spotlight John Gilbert.
John is an award winning film editor with nearly 30 years of experience working for major Hollywood studios such as Universal, Paramount and Sony. John’s career spans both theatrical films and television projects. Some of his film projects include American Pie, Atlas Shrugged and The Scorpion King. John’s work in television includes Hawaii Five-0,Teen Wolf and VIP for which he won an Emmy© award. John is a current member of the Motion Picture Editors Guild and served on the Board of Directors from 2002-2007. He is also a member of the American Cinema Editors, a highly esteemed organization for accomplished film industry editors. John holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Film and Electronic Arts from California State University, Long Beach. John is an avid distance runner, having successfully completed 10 Los Angeles Marathons and a frequent tournament golfer.
Outside […]
LAFD CERT 2018 Year-End Review
First, apologies if your event/refresher-training/call-out is not on the slider! There was A LOT going on in 2018! Just the Woolsey Fire was enough to take your breath away. The LAFD CERTs were much in demand, not only working on the call-outs, but refreshing their skills with frequent training exercises. Our Bureau Coordinators were stellar and we thank them:
Christy Adair, OVB
Carolyn Burleson, OCB
Chin Thammasaengsri, OSB
Carl Ginsberg, OWB
plus the Battalion Coordinators that gave up so much of their personal time to work on trainings, call-outs and their monthly LAFD CERT meetings! We thank them all! We said good-bye to CERT Unit Captain Christopher Winn but welcomed our new Captain Cody Weireter. We thank our hard working Commanders, Captains John Ignatczyk and Cody Weireter!
Don’t forget to view our past posts from just a few of our 2018 events:
Woolsey & Griffth Park Fire, LAFD CERT Unit, November 2018
November 15, 2018
For the past week the LAFD CERT Unit has been deployed throughout the city of Los Angeles. These LAFD CERT Teams have conducted fire patrols during the Red Flag conditions in the Los Angeles Fire Department Battalions prone to wildfire. Firefighter Rehab/Hydration requests for incidents such as the Woolsey fire & the Griffith Park fire. LAFD CERT worked together with Los Angeles Fire Department Crew 3 in the movement of much needed Firefighter Hydration and Rehab supplies. The LAFD CERT Unit also assisted with the critical mission of assisting West Hills residents with information while evacuations were lifted.
Thank-you Los Angeles for the generous donations and the continual support through the LAFD Foundation! (Please click if you wish to donate to the LAFD Foundation – then click either SUPPORT or GIVE. If you wish to donate to the LAFD CERT Unit to help with emergency […]
LAFD CERT & 2018 Taste of Soul
On Oct. 20, 2018 LAFD CERT served in multiple assignments for the annual Taste of Soul Family Festival, with attendance estimated over 350,000 people. It is held on Crenshaw Blvd. between Stocker St. and Rodeo Rd. For CERT, the call was at 0600 and went to 2100 hours. This was a HUGE event for CERT and the volunteers were extremely busy the entire day.
Chin Thammasaengsri, LAFD CERT South Bureau Coordinator, was the organizer for LAFD CERT and made the assignments of the 28 volunteers. Captain Cody Weireter, was commander of the LAFD CERT Unit and Captain I Rico Gross of EMS 18 in Battalion 18 served as the Medical Officer for this event. Captain Gross was the direct liaison for the LAFD with the festival organizers and all of the medical/EMS entities that were tied into this event including the private ambulance companies that were on scene.
Chin Thammasaengsri said, […]
LAFD Operations Central Bureau CERT Refresher
On Sept. 22, 2018 CERT members from around the city gathered at Frank Hotchkin Memorial Training Center to experience the Central Bureau CERT Refresher.
The day began with a welcoming from our new CERT Commander, Capt 1 Cody Weireter and Deputy Chief, Philip Fligiel of Operations Central Bureau followed by Central Bureau CERT Coordinator, Carolyn Burleson.
As CERT, knowing that we will be there to assist the whole community in a disaster, we called upon Richard Pope, Director of the Los Angeles Department on Disabilities who gave a very informative talk and answered questions about how to assist persons with disabilities and others with access and functional needs.
We then broke up into teams to do skills rotations, practicing head-to-toe assessments, heavy lifting and bandaging and splinting. To make it realistic, we had to respond using only what we brought with us in our CERT packs or whatever we could find lying around.
Finally, we brought […]