For 25 years, Dan Sullivan was a firefighter and later captain for the Los Angeles City Fire Department. And on each structure fire call they responded to, he and his crew payed special attention to staying safe around electricity.

It’s a lesson he continues to pass on to his students now as an instructor at Crafton Hills College’s Fire Technology Program.

“Electricity is a big factor in the fire service and you have to be aware of electricity in everything you do. Any structure fire has an electrical system,” said Sullivan, who noted that firefighters often get called out during challenging weather conditions and at night when its dark outside. “You have to be careful — don’t ever touch a downed wire.”

Sullivan was joined in early March by Scott Brown, a member of Southern California Edison’s Fire Management Team, to help teach electrical safety to freshman students enrolled in the “Introduction to Fire Protection” class.

Brown — a former firefighter with the San Bernardino County Fire Department and former SCE lineman and troubleman — partners with fire departments throughout SCE’s service territory to teach electrical safety for first responders on a regular basis.

“There are no tools to deal with electrical safety; only training can keep you safe. We give them the knowledge to know how to respond to an electrical fire safely,” said Brown, who noted SCE trains about 2,200 firefighters around electrical safety in a year. “We are their partners in this stuff. Safety is our number one priority.”

During the two-hour class, Brown discussed the hazards fire personnel may run into around power lines, including car hit poles, structure fires, underground vaults, dig-ins, substations and wildfire response. In addition to ongoing training for veteran firefighters, they also focus on rookie firefighters.

Student Angelica Eckenwilera attended Brown’s electrical safety class and learned how to safely handle a circuit breaker box by wearing dry leather gloves while handling the box’s switches.

But “the most important lesson I learned from the presentation was to always assume a downed powerline is energized,” she said.

Edison International, the parent company of SCE, recently provided Crafton Hills College a $25,000 grant for scholarships for its fire technology program. This grant was part of $5.5 million in grants Edison awarded in 2019 focused on wildfire mitigation and community resiliency in high fire risk areas.

“We are proud to partner with community colleges like Crafton Hills College so these fire technology students learn how to stay safe around electricity,” said Lisa Woon, SCE principal manager of Corporate Philanthropy.