Unalaska, AK – On Sunday, the United Methodist Church of Unalaska burst into flames. Several people were badly injured in the blaze, and according to Department of Public Safety Fire Chief Sidney Johnson, just about everything that could go wrong for his volunteer firefighters did.

"There were people hurt, there were casualties--there was the fire, of course, and there was a broken plug," Johnson said.

Fortunately, the fire was just a training exercise for the firefighters, what's called a critical incident drill. There wasn't a real fire, or even smoke-- the department was worried that fake smoke might damage the inside of the church, so the firefighters were blindfolded instead. The victims were actually volunteer actors, made up to look like they'd suffered burns in a fire.

Johnson said the aim of drill was to teach firefighters how to react in a situation where nothing's going their way, where they have to make quick decisions.

"There are a lot of obstacles you can run into: a broken plug, a delayed truck, a downed firefighter," he said. "So we tried to incorporate all of that into the drill. Also, we have a lot of veteran front-line firefighters, so we took them out of the equation and left the newer guys, to see how they would perform."

Johnson said that the volunteer squad did well in the drill, but that the exercise also gave him an idea of where there was room for improvement.

This was Johnson's first drill since he took over as fire chief in January, and he plans to step up the number of these training sessions the department conducts. The department is also offering more classes for volunteer firefighters in the near future, including officer training classes.