New fire training facility turns up heat on training

Published Aug. 18, 2015
By By Senior Airman Jami K. Lancette
434th ARW Public Affairs

GRISSOM AIR RESERVE BASE, Ind. -- The new fire house in on fire! And that's good news for a select few at Grissom.

Grissom recently began renovations that will transform the old smoke house into a state of the art facility designed to help provide firefighters with mandated training requirements.

"The original smoke house configuration did not meet the current training requirements," said Greg Scott, U.S. Army Corp of Engineers. "In order to comply with the current requirements, the Air Force determined that it was necessary to upgrade."

Currently, firefighters must complete their training at off-base locations, but at times those facilities are unavailable and can delay training deadlines, said Todd Woolf, Grissom Fire Department assistant chief of training.

"We have annual training requirements that require live fires twice a year," explained Woolf. "What we have to do right now is go to other locations to get that accomplished.

"Having the updated burn house will also allow us to burn more often, and rather than do it twice a year, we can do it whenever we want," he added. "We won't be locked into having to go off base, and worrying about availability."

The new facility will replace the older outdated building used in previous training exercises and will be better equipped to handle a wider variety of training objectives.

"It's basically a multi-faceted trainer where we will have an elevator shaft for confined space and high angle rescues," said Woolf. "The facility will also be equipped with an attic trainer, ventilation trainer, force able entry trainer and high angle repelling."

Having the ability to conduct training without scheduling conflicts will also allow the department to conduct night training, added Woolf.

"There's just a whole gamete of things that they can do now," he added. "The facility is going from a 1,600 square foot building to approximately 4,000 square foot building."

Not only will Grissom firefighters greatly benefit from the new building, other agencies from different counties will also get good use of the facility.

"All around it's just a better situation for everybody," concluded Woolf. "We have existing mutual aid agreements so other agencies can also train with us; we're the only fire training pit for aircraft within 100 mile radius so that's why a lot of people come here and train with us."

The $750,000 project is expected to be completed by Aug. 30, 2015.

Grissom is home to the 434th Air Refueling Wing, the largest KC135R Stratotanker unit in the Air Force Reserve Command.

Stay connected with Grissom and the 434th ARW on Facebook and Twitter.

News Search

Breaking up concrete

New fire training facility turns up heat on training

Public Affairs Staff