169th firefighters forge combat-ready skills in first DFT to Germany

SPANGDAHLEM AIR BASE, Germany — Firefighters assigned to the 169th Fighter Wing, South Carolina Air National Guard, weren't just training this time — they were breaking new ground. Over two weeks in-country, the unit led its first-ever Deployment for Training (DFT) on German soil, gaining hands-on experience in unfamiliar territory alongside firefighters assigned to the 52nd Fighter Wing — the kind of training that helps build combat-ready firefighters prepared to answer the call wherever the mission takes them.

A DFT is a specialized annual training period during which firefighters set aside their emergency response duties to focus solely on readiness. For this exercise, the schedule was somewhat different, as personnel were both training and working shifts concurrently. Throughout the training, crews practiced vent, enter, isolate and search (VEIS) techniques, forcible entry and ladder operations, and rapid intervention team (RIT), rescue and hose advancement techniques, sharpening the skills necessary to remain fully prepared for real-world operations.

For Senior Master Sgt. Daniel Tatum, deputy fire chief assigned to the 169th Fighter Wing, the training offered more than technical repetition — it replicated the conditions firefighters can expect to encounter downrange.

"By training on unfamiliar equipment, procedures and base, our firefighters are building the adaptability required to fall in with any team, anywhere, from day one of a real-world deployment," Tatum said. "The experience reinforces one of the Air National Guard's core readiness priorities: ensuring firefighters can integrate seamlessly with joint and international partners under real-world conditions."

Staff Sgt. Connor Whelan, a crew chief and lead instructor for the DFT assigned to the 169th Fighter Wing, said the exercise gave him and other senior noncommissioned officers a rare opportunity to pass on their experience to newer members of the fire department.

"As a lead instructor on the DFT, this is something we don't often get to do in our unit — most of us are senior staff, so we've been doing this a long time," Whelan said. "This training finally gives us the chance to have younger Airmen underneath us and really shape them into firefighters. We get to take charge of the training and pass on years of experience, and that's been huge for all of us."

The experience gained during this training was expected to directly enhance the readiness of 169th Fighter Wing firefighters, equipping them to adapt quickly to unfamiliar environments if called upon during an actual contingency.