Walker County, Ga., officials are deciding between the prefabricated firefighter training tower shown above that’s made by Kansas City, Kan.-based WHP Training Towers and a similar tower made by Fire Facilities Inc. of Sun
Prairie, Wis.Walker County, Ga., may take a small step toward lowering business’ fire insurance costs and a giant leap in improving firefighter training by buying a new training tower.
County officials are shopping for a prefabricated, two-story metal tower to replace the current, make-do training setup on Wallaceville Road that uses old shipping containers and a wooden tower fashioned from utility poles.
“We need a burn building really bad,” Fire Chief Randy Camp said. “The training’s just invaluable.”
At twice-yearly trainings, Walker County firefighters practice by extinguishing wooden pallets set ablaze inside the shipping containers. They sharpen such skills as deciding whether to spray water in a T, Z or O-shaped pattern, Camp said. And they learn how to avoid making things worse; a misplaced stream from a fire hose can produce enough steam to kill a person trapped inside a room.
“There is an art to interior firefighting,” Camp said. “The only way to teach that is to actually do it.”