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Tampa Firefighters Light Up New Training Facility

Tribune photo by MICHAEL SPOONEYBARGER

Tampa firefighters Chris Stone and Brent Burcham prepare to enter a new 200,000 training building.

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By VALERIE KALFRIN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 26, 2008

TAMPA - City firefighters couldn't wait today to explore a hot property: a new $200,000 training building at the fire academy.

The three-story building looks simple: seven steel shipping containers linked with stairs, windows and doors. Firefighters start blazes on the first or second floors using steel drums of plywood and sheets of plywood lining part of the walls and ceilings.

As the wood burns, however, firefighters experience the high heat and dense smoke of a fire and gauge their limits in such conditions. They also practice hose techniques and look for signs of life-threatening phenomena such as flashovers, which is when gases erupt into a fireball.

"We learn how to manipulate all the openings so we can make the fire do what we want. We can simulate a ship fire, a basement fire, a high-rise," Tampa Fire Rescue District Chief Troy Basham said.

Supervisors and trainers such as Basham practiced in the building Thursday and today. They were eager to introduce trainees to the environment.

"They're gonna need to get a taste of what it's like to be in an oven," Basham said, noting that temperatures inside can range from about 400 degrees near the floor to close to 1,000 degrees near the ceiling. "You'll see guys in here hugging that floor like it's Mom."

The city's capital improvement budget paid for the building, which was necessary for the fire academy to maintain state certification. The cost included delivery and set-up by the manufacturer, Swede Survival Systems of California, officials said. Two Los Angeles firefighters who work with the manufacturer led today's demonstrations.

Tampa's firefighters previously trained in Pinellas or Citrus counties in such structures. They also used smoke machines and lit fires inside a four-story, concrete block burn building made in the 1970s.

Damage to that building was expensive to repair; with the new structure, the agency can replace damaged parts by substituting a new container, Basham said.

Firefighter Les Ennis, a 19-year veteran of Tampa Fire Rescue, said the new facility "smoked up" in a way the old burn building never did. "You could take your mask off in that building," he said, nodding at the old structure. "If you take it off in here, you're choking. It has that factor of, 'If I don't get out of here, I could die.'"

The conditions were identical to those in a house fire, with one exception: no furniture, said firefighter Brent Burcham. "You get the hose tangled around dining-room chairs."

Reporter Valerie Kalfrin can be reached at (813) 259-7800 or vkalfrin@tampatrib.com.

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