SPOKANE -- There’s always a remote chance one of Spokane’s gondolas will get stuck heading over the falls so the Spokane Fire Department had crews out Monday practicing high angle rescue training.

With the warm temperatures across the region the river will soon rise and there’s no better place to see the spring runoff than a trip over the Spokane Falls. And just in case one of the gondolas gets stranded out there firefighters want to make sure they can safely rescue the people inside.

Every year firefighters practice better ways dealing with a gondola trip gone wrong. When that happens firefighters from Station Four take to their ropes to practice high angle rescues.

The first step is to start with a nice immovable object to tie their lines off to.

“We just anchored to one of our vehicles through the wheel, did a change of direction here, did a belay line which is our backup safety line up on top,” Spokane Fire Lieutenant Mark Vietzke said as the training exercise gone underway.

The next step is to assess the situation. Lt. Vietzke said that Monday’s exercise was “a mock drill that if someone was trapped over the river we could go out and pass over one car, get into the middle car and retrieve them.”

It might seem like a drill today, but back in 2006 that’s exactly what happened when 18 people were stranded during a mechanical malfunction.

After crews are lifted to the top of the tower they can work their way across the cable using something called a roll cab which Lt. Vietzke says the firefighters, “to roll somewhat freely down the cable without fraying a piece of webbing or a rope.”

Once at the gondola the victim – in Monday’s exercise a training dummy – is put in a rescue harness and lowered to the ground. High angle rescues are just one of several skills practiced regularly by fire crews at Station Four.

“We've got the high angle, trench rescue, confined space and urban search and rescue team, we're all assigned out of Station Four,” Lt. Vietzke said.

If you want to get a look at the fire department’s training from the Monroe Street Bridge, the high angle training will be going on through Thursday.