LoHud: Training firefighters burns up buildings -and money

[SRS131EMTFF 471]

Your Tax Dollars at Work: Training firefighters burns up buildings -and money

Westchester recently wrapped up a contract for $481,500 in renovations to the smoke house and the Department of Emergency Serviceshas requested $1.88 million in the 2014 capital budget to rehab the high-rise tower.

http://www.lohud.com/article/20140131/NEWS02/301310066/Your-Tax-Dollars-Work-Training-firefighters-burns-up-buildings-money

[Stepjam 118]

A tiny investment that pays huge dividends.

[x635 4,066]

It seems like anytime anything needs work at WCDES facilities, a band aid solution has been put in place, that's often quickly outgrown.

The smokehouse and tower have been rehabbed and repaired extensively multiple over the past few years, and usually to fix the exact same things over and over. When I took Essentials in 1997, the tower and smoke house were condemned due to extensive deterioration. Wouldn't it be more cost effective in the long term just to knock both down, and build modern training structures? Have they built the taxpayer (strip mall) simulator that has been sitting in the budget requests for years yet?

I'm sorry, funding is good, but not using the funds wisely is wasteful and just takes away from true future improvements and enhancements.

[wraftery 1,275]

Sorry, guys, I'll have to disagree. It's not Band-Aid repairs, it's. not an improper use of the bidding process. I was at the original dedication of the training center and it was one of the greatest things the county could do for the fire service.

So what happened to it? We wrecked it! Not once but over and over. Instead of following NFPA guidelines that allow for a maximum of 150lbs of Class A combustibles, we torched much more than that. We spalled the concrete and warped the steel doors and window shutters. All of this not for actual knowledge snd skills to be gained, but just to say {to no one who gives a crap) how macho we are because our fire was bigger than yours.

If you are not getting enough runs and want your helmet look salty, put in in your Barbecue grill and don't wreck a perfectly good Training Center again.

[16fire5 693]

Sorry, guys, I'll have to disagree. It's not Band-Aid repairs, it's. not an improper use of the bidding process. I was at the original dedication of the training center and it was one of the greatest things the county could do for the fire service.

So what happened to it? We wrecked it! Not once but over and over. Instead of following NFPA guidelines that allow for a maximum of 150lbs of Class A combustibles, we torched much more than that. We spalled the concrete and warped the steel doors and window shutters. All of this not for actual knowledge snd skills to be gained, but just to say {to no one who gives a crap) how macho we are because our fire was bigger than yours.

If you are not getting enough runs and want your helmet look salty, put in in your Barbecue grill and don't wreck a perfectly good Training Center again.

I couldn't agree more. And with that we are teaching firefighters the wrong thing. We are teaching firefighters that the high heat environment is ok to operate in. In reality the we can get a concrete burn building much hotter than would be safe in a regular residential fire setting we are in real danger of flashover. With all we have learned in the last 15 years (Andy Fredericks and Black Fire to Mondern UL/NIST Research) we need to respect the voitility of todays fires. I'm not sure we're doing that with our current mehods. I'm not talking about throwing out the baby with the bath water here because live fire in a controlled environment is priceless. We just need to take a hard look at our methods.