VIDEO: The Carson City Fire Department conducted a live fire training exercise on Wednesday, taking advantage of the demolition of the Children’s Home Cottage. Because of this rare opportunity that only comes around every 10 years or so, crews were able to get hands-on experience fighting a structure fire.
“We were able to light these buildings on fire and take crews around the building, and they were able to see a fire progress through a building, which helps us a lot on a real fire scene,” said Kevin Nyberg, the Interim Fire Chief for the Carson City Fire Department. “We’re able to predict where a fire goes. We’re able to identify where we’re going to send crews in and locate where a fire’s at in a building.”
Nyberg explains that most of the time they conduct training through simulations using smoke machines, but this type of training is the most valuable to them. “We get to see the actual real thing,” he said. “Crews get to see how a fire actually responds to a building, and we just don’t get these opportunities very much.”
Training like this requires a lot of helping hands. The East Fork Fire Protection District, Tahoe Douglas Fire Protection District, and South Lake Tahoe Fire Department all participated in the training. In regard to smoke from the training affecting air quality, that’s where the Nevada Department of Emergency Protection comes in. They’ve been monitoring the air quality and letting the firefighters know when it is best to hold the training.
