By Nick Draper
Idaho Falls Post Register (Idaho)
Copyright2007The Post Register
All Rights Reserved
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho — Local firefighters completed practice drills on a donated building to train for the real deal.
Idaho Falls firefighters didn’t worry about making a mess Monday.
Twenty-five of them commandeered the Old Western Store building at the corner of 33rd North and Fifth East to practice ripping holes in a roof, breaching doors and tearing through walls.
The owner didn’t care about the mess - the building is set to be demolished today - but it meant a lot to the firefighters.
“You can sit and talk about it all you want, but until you’ve actually taken an ax and tried to chop through a roof, you really don’t understand what it’s like,” Idaho Falls Fire Department Capt. Brett Johnson said.
The firefighters, who were split into two groups, trained on the structure from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Everyone was on duty in case an actual fire broke out in the city.
Tadd Jenkins, the building’s owner, didn’t have a use for the 7,000-square-foot structure anymore and decided to donate it to the
fire department after a friend told him the department would love to train on it.
“We thought, ‘What the heck,” he said.
The fire department has a four-story drill tower on Foote Drive that it utilizes throughout the year, but it’s primarily used to simulate hauling hoses up a couple of flights of stairs and to practice spraying water.
Firefighters also train in another donated house, on Lincoln Road. When personnel train there, they put a smoke machine inside the building to conduct search-and-rescue drills.
It’ll probably be set on fire for training purposes eventually, Johnson said, but because the owners don’t want it demolished right away, the IFFD is trying to keep it intact.
Working on donated buildings isn’t anything new for the department. Firefighters trained on several buildings near the Sunnyside Road overpass while it was being built.
“Every building is just a little bit different, and it really gives you a sense of what it’s like to get up there and do that,” Johnson said.
Always a need
Idaho Falls firefighters train on donated homes and buildings whenever possible. Sometimes three or four houses will be donated in a year; other times, an entire year will pass without a donation.