Training for Greenville Fire recruits heats up

Months of hard work went up in smoke today for some local fire recruits.

Thanks to a donation from a Greenville property owner, the Greenville Fire and Rescue Academy held a live burn which helps the recruits put everything they learned to the test.

The smoke and flames are real but the scenario is a simulation. Benjamin Herd described it as, “Kind of like our final test.“

For Herd, this is as close to the real thing as it gets. “This is the day we take all the training that we’ve done and we put it all together.“

Herd is one of 18 members of recruit class 4.

Deputy Chief Sandy Harris explained, “This is a chance for them to see fire behavior. The materials in there are set so that they can actually see a fire actually grow; they’ll get a feel for where the application of water will actually decrease the size of that fire.“

Recruit Jamie Worthington described what it’s like inside. He said, “The heats intense when you go in the smokes banked down tight to the floor so you have to get down and put some water on the fire.“

But there’s more to this training than lighting fires and hitting it with a hose. It took 30 people, three agencies and about 12 hours of prep work to put this together.

Once everything is in place, the instructors load the rooms with hay and wood pallets then dowsed them with fuel. Once the smoke and flames start to roll out of the room, the recruits head in to knock it down.

Its hard work that these firefighters expect will pay off. Worthington said, “Just the experience of going in an atmosphere that we haven’t been in yet. It’s a real confidence builder so that when we get to the real thing we’ll be used to it.“

But the real thing, instructors say, is sometimes unpredictable and that’s what all this training is for.

The last day for these recruits is on December 18th.