COLORADO SPRINGS — “It's pretty smoked out in there. So it's tough to communicate with other people. It's tough to see where you're going. We pretty much have to rely on our sense of touch and also listen to our radio to see where everybody's at inside the structure.”
James Tubbs, a trainee with Colorado Springs Fire Department just finished one of seven structure fire drills happening this day in the recently updated training tower.
Modifications to the tower now bring it up to standards for igniting everyday combustibles like wood and straw for live fire training.
“It is much, much better. It really simulates the real-life conditions of what they might get into with a normal fire that would happen inside of our community,” said CSFD Instructor in Charge, Lieutenant Eric Ruettinger.
The upgrades include a monitoring system that automatically sends alerts to leadership smartphones and with an exterior flashing light when it gets dangerously hot in the tower and anyone inside needs to get out for their safety.
Previously live fire training required road trips to other fire agencies with live fire capability.
Bringing it into department facilities allows for more frequent and flexible training.
“There is a level of fumbling to learning, and I think that being able to use the live fire that we have out here allows us to kind of have that heightened stress level, which ultimately allows us to see what we revert back to and hopefully that's a high level,” said Tubbs.
The new training capability is an improvement for firefighters skills which helps improve public safety for everyone in the community.
