The saying goes, where there is smoke there is fire. This may be true in most cases - and what happened on Day 2 of the Alaska Fire Conference caught firefighters off-guard as the unexpected unfolded at a hands-on training session. A fire training exercise took place on Tuesday at an abandoned structure next to the Sacred Heart Cathedral where firefighters practiced a technique of firefighting referred to as “aggressive interior firefighting.” This type of fire suppression focuses on a specific situation that doesn’t often occur. In order for the technique to work, a structure needs to be standing and in one piece, and also have a fire in it that hasn’t fully developed. This allows the responders to go into the structure and perform various tasks such as search and rescue while using hoses inside the building to combat the flames and put the fire out.