Firefighters in southwest Michigan rarely get called to the scene of a trench collapse, but that does not mean they won’t be ready when it happens.

Last week, members of the Michigan 5th District Technical Rescue Team performed quarterly training for specialized emergencies such as high angle ropes, confined space, building collapse and trench collapse in Niles.

The Niles City Fire Department is just one of more than 20 fire departments in southwest Michigan that are part of the specialized rescue squad, which was created three years ago.

Capt. Don Wise, of the Niles Fire Department, said the team is needed because individual departments do not have the funding necessary to purchase the equipment or the manpower to perform the rescues.

“With budgets tightening up and manpower shrinking, we are sharing resources to do a task that nobody has the funding or the personnel to do,” he said. “The state has given us (5th District Team) money for training and equipment.

“When something happens we activate this (team) and other departments send their members to the scene.”

The Niles Fire Department also belongs to MABAS 201 — a technical rescue team based in northern Indiana. Wise said they average about two trench rescues a year with MABAS 201.

The technical rescue team in southwest Michigan has yet to respond to a trench collapse, but members train for it quarterly.

“That is what makes this (training) so important, because it (a trench collapse call) is low frequency and very high risk,” said Lt. Jack Trayling, of the Coldwater Fire Department and the Michigan 5th District Rescue Team. “It is something that the average fire department doesn’t train on so you can very easily have a situation where somebody gets themselves in trouble.”

Trayling said 60 percent of trench rescue victims are would-be rescuers who tried to help the first victim get out of the trench. He advised people to call 911 instead of trying to help.

Wise said a trench collapse is dangerous because one square foot of clay soil weighs 150 pounds.

“So when you get a whole wall of that that caves in and traps them in there they are unable to rescue themselves,” he said. “If you have one collapse you have a greater chance of having a second or third collapse.”

The technical rescue training took place Thursday, Friday and Saturday near the Niles Street Department off on 17th Street.