By Brian Trompeter
The Vienna Volunteer Fire Department periodically conducts training exercises at homes in the community that are scheduled for demolition, but July 19 drills at 102 Oak St., S.W., carried extra significance.
That one-story rambler, built in 1954, formerly was the residence of the late Sam and Gertrude Savia, the former of whom was active for seven decades with the volunteer fire department – the most of any member ever.
“This house is a little bit special for us,” said Suppression Capt. Adam Searle. “It has a lot of history for the fire department and for Sam, who was our most celebrated member, basically.”
Fire crews from the Vienna department and other volunteer fire stations on July 19 practiced engine-company operations, such as being dispatched to the house, arriving and deploying hose lines quickly and efficiently. Crews also did a rapid-intervention-team drill that simulated rescuing an injured firefighter from the basement, Searle said.
Inside the home, smoke machines and a lighting device that simulated the look of a fire, he said.
Vienna Volunteer Fire Department officials plan to do further drills at the house and hope in coming weeks to obtain permits required to burn the home for an even more intensive training scenario. This would need to occur shortly before the home’s demolition, as town officials do not wish for the burnt out structure to remain extant for long, Searle said.
Such exercises, which involve setting up wooden pallets and hay bales in the house, permit firefighters to practice breaking windows, cutting holes in the roof and tearing down ceilings to ensure the blaze has not migrated elsewhere in the structure.
The building’s likely fiery fate probably would have pleased Sam Savia, Searle said. Savia, who died Dec. 9, 2011, at age 85, joined the Vienna Volunteer Fire Department in November 1941 when he was 15.
“I was proud to be an American,” Savia told the former Sun Gazette Newspapers in a 2003 interview. “I felt fortunate to be here and I wanted to give something back.”
Before serving with the Army Air Corps in World War II, he would watch for aircraft from the fire station’s tower and keep his ears cocked for air-raid alerts from the building’s siren.
“If you were on a call and the siren blew, you went,” Savia told the Sun Gazette.
Savia later would serve several terms as the fire department’s president, vice president, secretary and lieutenant, as well as on its board of directors.
In July 2011, department officials honored Savia’s service by giving him a full-sized replica of a firefighter’s ax and naming station’s apparatus bay after him.
Joan Dempsey, president of the department’s auxiliary, fondly recalled how Savia had congratulated her in 2008 after she had become president of the auxiliary to the State Firefighters Association. He also had quite the sweet tooth, she said.
Having delighted for years at hearing Savia’s stories, Dempsey said she encourages younger members of the department to listen attentively when their older colleagues share tales.
Gertrude Savia died July 16, 2022, at age 90. Searle afterward noticed a for-sale sign on the house and contacted the real-estate agent, whom he had worked with previously when buying his own home.
The home’s current owners plan to raze the house and build another – an occurrence quite common in Vienna in recent decades – and agreed with a request from the fire department to permit training scenarios there.
“While it sits there dormant, we have permission to drill on it,” Searle said.
Fighting a real fire during a training exercise is decidedly different from the simulation conducted recently, Searle said. Firefighters can feel the blaze’s intense heat and watch how it moves depending on various temperatures in the room, he said.
Actual fire calls at residences are even more harrowing because – unlike training scenarios where firefighters only burn fixed objects such as cabinets – people’s homes are filled with furniture and many other items that produce different toxins when burnt.
Career firefighters with the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department also will have the opportunity to train at the Savia house during their shifts, but volunteers will do most of the training there, Searle said.
“I think this is sort of a touching send-off,” he said. “I think [Sam Savia] would be really happy to know that his house had one last hurrah as part of the fire department and valuable training for the volunteers there.”
