VIDEO: Fire alarms went off at Heartland Community College Friday morning, but it was an exercise for firefighters in Normal. A fire drill was at the campus electric vehicle lab to simulate what it would be like if a lithium battery caught on fire.
“We’re here today to practice these things so that when the real thing happens, we’ve at least done it a couple of times and we know what to expect,” said Normal Fire Department‘s Public Information Officer Matt Swaney. “Being able to train, to go in and search and rescue in a building that size and find the start of the fire, bring hose lines in and rescue potential victims is good training for us, whether it’s related to electric vehicles or not,” Swaney said.
Staff members at the college were asked to participate in this exercise to simulate a real-life emergency, and for some participants, the simulation felt real. “It was really interesting,” said participate Breanne Evans. “The fake smoke was a lot more intense than I thought it would be. Obviously, it was easy to breathe, but my body was actually reacting to it, in which, like I started finding myself breathing kind of shallow or holding my breath because my body saw the smoke and it kind of thought, oh my God, is this real?”
