WELD COUNTY — Scores of firefighters are gearing up to sharpen their skills at a new state-of-the-art “green” training complex rising in Weld County.
The $19 million 14-acre complex, planned for years and brought to life by the North Metro Fire Protection District, will help firefighters to train for a wide array of situations, including fires in three types of structures and rescues in water, ice, confined spaces such as a tunnel and after a trench collapse.
A three-story “tower” building will feature a floor that vibrates, simulating the feel of a floor in a real fire that is buckling and about to collapse.
“We lose way too many firefighters each year,” North Metro Chief John O’Hayre Jr. said. “The biggest thing is to teach them here to protect themselves and be able to go home at the end of a shift and not have to worry about losing someone.”
The North Metro Fire Protection District Training Center will also include a driving track, a working fire house, a truck and equipment maintenance facility and an education and classroom center.
“We can teach them to drive in this environment as opposed to on the street,” said Dave Anderson, division chief of training for North Metro.
Practice fires at the new environmentally friendly facility will be ignited from a clean propane source, producing minimal smoke and runoff pollution. Water used to quench the fires will flow back to a retention pond so it can be reused. Firefighters hope to recapture about 60 percent of the water they use to train.
The pond and its recycled water will save hundreds of thousands of gallons for the district over the course of a year and help cap operating costs.
North Metro Fire, which will own and operate the facility, plans to open it up to firefighters from across Colorado, if not the nation.
When completed in September, the facility, at 1006 Weld County Road 11, will be the largest, most up-to-date training center in the Rocky Mountain region.
The confined-space rescue course is made up of more than 200 feet of buried pipe with several manhole accesses along the course for quick emergency extraction.
Landscaping around the practice burn buildings will include a parking lot and parked vehicles so that trainees will be able get the feel for racing up to a burning building and encountering obstacles.
Anderson said among the most desired safety features of the training facility will be a remote-control system that can shut down the propane fire source at a second’s notice.
The facility will give firefighters the opportunity to push the envelope while training but at the same time allow them to do it more safely than at older, less-equipped centers.
“What we’re going to do is create a myriad of potential scenarios that firefighters are going to encounter over their careers,” O’Hayre said. “This is going to be one of a kind.”
Kieran Nicholson: 303-954-1822 or knicholson@denverpost.com
