Firefighting is tough enough with 20/20 vision, and it can get even tougher when eyesight can't pierce through the haze. To simulate the effects of zero visibility in a smoke-filled structure, Gaffney firefighters such as Robert Ruff, pictured, had to place wax paper in their face masks during open space search and rescue training held this week. (Ledger photo / TIM GULLA) Imagine going into a building crawling on your hands and knees, blindfolded, and trying to describe the layout of the building based solely on your sense of touch.

Now throw in the possibility that someone’s life, including your own or your co-workers, could be on the line while you grope and plot your way and the task can take on somewhat unimaginable proportions — especially if you don’t know your way back out.

City of Gaffney firefighters didn’t really have to imagine that scenario this past week, as all members of the city fire department had to go through an admittedly “extreme” training exercise.

Firefighters spent most of the training exercises crawling on their hands and knees. The goal of the program was for firefighters to practice their searchand rescue techniques in a large area setting with zero visibility, to simulate what they might encounter in an industrial building filled with smoke.

“You can really have zero visibility,” said training officer Scott Coleman.

While smoke eventually clears and firefighters have access to technologies such as infrared cameras to help them pierce through haze, Coleman didn’t give the firefighters such benefits when running them through drills this week.

Each firefighter entering the practice area had wax paper applied to their face masks, which only permitted them a sense of light and dark but not the ability to really see.

“The hope is, if you train in extreme conditions, it will build the firefighters’ confidence and skills to use on the job,” Coleman said.

This week, firefighters specifically were tasked with using a “systematic approach” to search and rescue, in which they entered the practice area as teams and used ropes knotted at specific measurements to lay out search grids while communicating what they saw, or felt, to other firefighters outside the building.

Firefighters outside the building used the rope measurements they heard over the radio to plot the search-and-rescue teams’ location inside the building, and what areas were searched so follow-up efforts could concentrate on different areas.

The fire resistant ropes used by the firefighters serve additional uses — perhaps the most important being as a way to lead firefighters back out of a building when they can’t see where they’re going.

The essentially blindfolded firefighters inside the building had to conduct their searches in full gear and while breathing from air tanks, and every firefighter who completed the practice session was soaked in sweat long before the practice session was completed.

Coleman has additional sessions planned that will ramp up the exercise.

Fire Chief Nathan Ellis said he appreciated the use of a vacant commercial property for the drills. “Because of the generosity of a local building owner, we were able to do this training in a realistic setting,” he said.