By Kaighla White
Commercial-News
DANVILLE, Ill. — Trainee firefighters from all over the Midwest came to Danville for the past few weeks to train on how to fight a live, active house fire. An old, dilapidated house on Jefferson Street in south Danville was deliberately set alight to give new firefighters some on-the-job training, according to DFD Training Captain Ryan Allison.
As part of their final steps in training, new firefighters must display their ability to work through a house fire safely and swiftly, Allison said.
“They’re getting a more realistic experience here than they’d get in a metal training warehouse,” he added.
Trainees with the Champaign and Urbana Fire Departments who had already completed about four weeks of their required six weeks of training worked alongside trainees with other area fire departments to fight fires in the house that were set across the span of several days, Allison said.
There were even some DFD trainees who had only recently been sworn in, Allison said.
“We just swore in three last week and one this week, and so they’re still so new that they’re not at the point of doing live fire stuff yet,” Allison said. “But we did bring them down here from the outside, walked around and talked about smoke conditions. So it was definitely impactful for our own guys as well.”
Tuesday was their final burn on the property, Allison said, so they were allowing it to burn to the ground safely after days of setting and putting out smaller, controlled fires throughout the house.
Since the city has such a long list of dilapidated houses that need to come down, allowing the fire department to set them alight for training was a two-birds-one-stone situation, Allison said.
“The goal is to try and continue this program in targeted areas where we can minimize the impact on the neighborhood,” Allison said, adding that firefighters are skilled in how to safely light fires in these situations to control the way the house burns down. “There are several houses very near this one and they’re all safe.”
Before this portion of training, the DFD also hosted a special training known as VES — vent, enter, search beyond the door.
“We had guys from Kentucky , Wisconsin , and Iowa . We had an instructor come here all the way from Montana to teach that class,” Allison said.
The purpose of this training was to teach trainees how to go into a burning building and find and rescue victims.
“We took this big house and we filled it with furniture, clothing — we made it like a real home — and then we didn’t burn anything in it, we just made fake smoke, like Halloween smoke,” Allison said.
After completing a few more weeks of training, including handling hazardous materials and extrication vehicle rescue training, new firefighters will graduate from the academy and be assigned a shift.
“I’m very proud of our guys, our department, and where we’re at,” Allison said, adding that he is grateful for the support the DFD has received from the city as they train their new firefighters.
“The support from the mayor and everybody else has been phenomenal,” he said, also thanking DFD Fire Chief Aaron Marcott.
- Fire Captain Joe Hunter and Fire Lieutenant Chrissy Sarnowsky bring their firefighting skills and resilience to the latest season of CBS’s ‘Survivor.’
© 2025 the Commercial-News (Danville, Ill.)
Visit www.commercial-news.com.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.