As America’s cities work to redevelop their urban cores, they’re increasingly turning to models of mixed-use development. These can combine residential, commercial, office, retail and entertainment spaces in the same buildings and blocks. It’s an efficient way to use limited space and revitalize struggling areas.
What it may make harder, though, is firefighting – at least when departments train using old-fashioned shipping containers. While containers have been a common training platform in the fire service and aren’t without some utility for live-fire exercises, they have significant shortfalls that make it difficult for firefighters to fully prepare for today’s complex suppression scenes.
Specifically, container systems often have limited environmental controls and data feedback, limit scenario complexity, may feature unrealistic fire behavior and have raised safety and environmental concerns in some jurisdictions.
The mixed-use structures favored by developers these days also have features incompatible with container-based training, such as multistory and mixed-layout interior spaces (for instance, residences or office space above street-level retail); redeveloped and transitional spaces for various uses; active street fronts with multiple entry and exit points; and differing construction types.
That can pose a training quandary. Training environments that allow flexibility in wall and route configurations, though, can better mimic these structural complexities.
Keep your training space fresh
That’s the idea behind the MODx modular fire training tower system from WHP Trainingtowers – a stackable, expandable and fully customizable training structure system developed as a versatile and long-lasting alternative for fire service training.
“The MODx provides ultimate flexibility using a component approach rather than the cubicle approach a shipping container would provide,” explained Joe Kirchner, WHP Trainingtowers’ chief operating officer. “There are no structural wall components to the MODx, so departments can interchange doors and windows and walls as they need to keep their training space fresh and keep firefighters from relying on their muscle memory to work through the training structure. There’s also flexibility on the interior, where things can be moved, removed and changed.”
That gives departments tremendous latitude to design tailored training environments to practice specific tasks or recreate the types of local facilities to which they might be called.
This is accomplished by combining various 8-by-20-foot modules built around fully galvanized structural steel frames that bear all loads. The modules can be freely stacked and combined, and walls, doors and windows come in panels that are easily swapped out. The system can be supplemented with interior and exterior stairs, as well as a selection of training props and accessories, and reconfigured or expanded over time.
WHP Trainingtowers provides four basic starting combinations of various sizes and complexity from which departments can build and adapt:
- Its entry-level M Series provides four modular units to create a two-story tower with an attached single-story annex.
- The O Series comes with nine units and a modular roof unit to depict a two-story residential/industrial environment.
- The D Series has 16 units for a larger two-story residential/industrial setting.
- The X Series has 16 units that can create a four-story tower with a two-story residential/industrial unit and single-story annex.
To support users’ customizations, the company offers a “Build-A-MODx” online design tool that lets customers design their system from scratch, configuring their own modules, layouts, doors, stairs and interior features.
“We provide some different starting points, but the designs are basically infinite from there,” said Kirchner. “It’s a solution designed to provide flexibility immediately and in the future.
“One thing we tell all our customers before we even start on a structure for them is to go drive around their community and review all those calls they’ve gone on and buildings they’ve worked in and hazards they’ve faced. Then they can work on adding those challenges into their new structure. When we do that in a modular format, it gives them the ability to not only recreate past hazards they’ve run into, but to create new hazards if they run into anything in the future that they want to emulate in a safe training environment.”
‘We try to bring that family element to it’
There’s a lot of family experience behind this unique approach to fire service training.
WHP Trainingtowers emerged from an earlier training tower company first launched in 1980. In 1997 that company’s founder retired and passed things on to Bill Jahnke. With 11 years as fire chief in Overland Park, Kansas, Jahnke had extensive background not only in the fire service but in construction management as well – a combination that helped sustain success. Today the company is run by President/CEO Maggie Scaletty, Jahnke’s daughter; Chief Product Officer Steve Jahnke, his son; and COO Kirchner, who’s been with the company more than two decades.
“As a retired fire chief, Bill really understood what the fire service needed and worked to develop products around that,” said Kirchner. “He wanted to make sure we were really taking care of firefighters. We try to bring that family element to it and help keep them as safe as they can be.”
The first iteration of that effort was the company’s flagship Alarm Series, a customizable series of fixed towers and burn room options that was among the industry’s first purpose-built steel fire training structures and continues to serve customers today.
By the early 2000s, though, customers had begun to inquire about systems built around shipping containers. WHP Trainingtowers leaders looked into the idea.
Whereas shipping containers were built to ship goods and may only last 10 years in fire training use, the MODx was engineered specifically for fire training and will last decades. It can also support the requirements of the recently revamped NFPA 1400 Standard on Fire Service Training.
WHP Trainingtowers
“We started delving into it to understand how shipping containers could be repurposed into structures, and because of the various limitations, we ultimately chose not to go in that direction,” said Kirchner. “The first thing was the space constraints. They’re eight-foot units that are structurally dependent on the walls and floor and ceiling and everything being in place. Once we started cutting in openings for access, we quickly found there were limitations in both flexibility and cost factors as well. By the time you repurpose things and put in the necessary structural modifications, you end up spending a lot more than you would with a purpose-built modular structure.”
Raw containers themselves aren’t expensive, but the costs of container-based systems accrue quickly when you combine containers and start adding the necessary fabrications, reinforcements, lining and thermal protections, ventilation/smoke handling, props and monitoring capabilities. The total price tags can quickly mount to hundreds of thousands of dollars – for a training experience with significant deficiencies.
Container setups also may conflict with state environmental laws and local codes and require modifications to comply with newer editions of NFPA fire training standards.
Modular solution discovered
With that WHP Trainingtowers turned its R&D efforts toward a modular answer, and by the mid 2010s that led to the patented MODx system. This built on key elements of the Alarm Series such as the structural steel framing and factory-painted wall finishes that have a 20-year warranty. The structure itself is warrantied for 10.
“There are a lot of low-maintenance features we built into the MODx that we borrowed from our fixed structures, knowing the need to hold up to harsh conditions,” Kirchner said.
A key aspect of that durability is the use of hot-dipped galvanized steel for structures’ perimeter supports. This immerses steel in molten zinc, creating a coating that helps resist rust and prolong life. Drainage design has also been improved to better evacuate training water. Burn rooms can handle temperatures up to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Whereas shipping containers were built to ship goods and may only last 10 years in fire training use, the MODx was engineered specifically for fire training and will last decades.
It can also support the requirements of the recently revamped NFPA 1400 Standard on Fire Service Training.
“That’s a more in-depth standard now that connects with a lot of the other 1400 documents,” explained Kirchner. “The MODx was initially developed utilizing NFPA 1402 [which concerns fire training facilities], and it continues to be updated to meet the standards of NFPA 1400.”
Its costs can often be defrayed by grants, including from some top programs. AFG (Assistance to Firefighters Grants) and Homeland Security/Emergency Preparedness awards can cover equipment and training; Fire Prevention & Safety (FP&S) grants support training; and even SAFER (Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response) funds can cover related costs like training in support of staffing. For a training experience that’s more realistic and longer-lasting, that’s a valuable investment.
Learn the job, not the prop
For firefighters, the enhanced training possible with the MODx system overcomes many of the structural, flexibility and lifecycle shortcomings of old container props and aligns better with modern safety, code and training expectations. A benefit just as big, however, may lie in cognitive stress training.
When modular structures differ with each evolution, crews can’t memorize the building, search patterns must adapt, and officers must do a thorough size-up. Crews learn the job, not just the prop – and that benefits everyone.
For more information, visit WHP Trainingtowers.
MODx and MODx Modular are trademarks of WHP Trainingtowers. WHP, WHP Trainingtowers and Alarm Series are registered trademarks of WHP Trainingtowers.
