By Bruce Garner
Firefighter recruits at the 2015 Chattanooga Fire Academy felt the heat last Friday as they burned a large, two-story farm house down to the ground. The training staff ran the recruits through their paces all week, putting out individual room fires and learning about fire suppression, search and rescue techniques, and ventilation. It didn’t take long for the house to become engulfed in flames, which facilitated our traditional class photo (above). At its peak, the heat was measured at 1,900 degrees with a thermal imaging camera.
The big house burn marks the end of fire training for the 21 recruits. If they make it through the training on vehicle extrication and hazardous materials, they will graduate on Thursday, September 3, 2015. The old farm house was 119-years-old and its owners said it was well beyond repair. So they donated the house for the purpose of providing excellent live burn training exercises. In return, the house was burned to the ground at the end of the week to greatly reduce demolition expenses.
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