The reduction of live fires and new challenges facing firefighters have fire chiefs trying to increase the frequency of training in their departments. They are doing so not only with an emphasis on firefighting, but also with an emphasis on rescue, hazmat and emergency medical services. The budgetary pressures faced by many departments, which are being exacerbated by the current economic downturn, are causing fire chiefs and officers to turn to public-safety architects to design accessible and economical training facilities into their stations.

Where do you begin to design training into your next fire station? Mark Shoemaker of Cincinnati-headquartered Cole + Russell Architects encourages fire departments to start thinking about training from day one as they start to develop the basic program for the building.

"We talk about training-needs assessment and what kind of training would be most beneficial to the department?" Shoemaker says. "How will it be used and what kind of training exercises you want to perform needs to be discussed early on, otherwise you end up trying to retrofit something into a design and it may cost more to do it that way and not ultimately be as effective a training device."

Sometimes the type of department — career, volunteer, combination — will determine what kind of training to incorporate into the fire station. Career departments usually have a set number of training hours built in for on-duty firefighters. However, one of the biggest challenges for any volunteer department is offering hands-on, practical training for its firefighters.

"Volunteer departments face the problem of finding opportunities for their personnel to have time away from their regular jobs for training, which usually means evenings or weekends," says Ken Newell, of Stewart-Cooper-Newell Architects in Gastonia, N.C.

Start at square one

Both architects agree that by incorporating training at the beginning of the project, facilities geared toward enhancing practical skills — ladder evolutions, rappelling, self-rescue, confined-space rescue — can be integrated very economically into station design.

Several training facilities — such as hose-advance drills and training towers with advanced technical rope rescue and aerial ladder training exercises — might cost a bit more, but offer value in ease of access. When incorporating such facilities into the architectural design, communication is a necessity.

"We did a fire station where the tower was the tall feature of the building, but it was not an architectural feature so it was put on the back of the building and put on a large training pad where we could do a lot of extrication drills and things like that," Shoemaker says.

If the exterior design of the building or tower will be used for training purposes, Shoemaker recommends discussing that with your architect, as the structure will need added protection and structural reinforcement to withstand the abuse over the years. He added that retrofitting structures to reinforce them ultimately may cost more, and they still might be ineffective for training.

"You want to have a metal coping that's going to get dented and scratched by putting a ladder against it. You could put a blanket over it, but that's more of hazard, so we frequently put a cover of heavy steel, similar to diamond plate, over the parapet to help protect it," Shoemaker says. "We do that when we have an opening in mezzanine walls for ladder and rappelling. We also put protection plates on the wall and sills to eliminate damage to the building over time.

Newell suggests that most stairwells be configured in a scissor pattern — back and forth, with two landings per vertical floor.

"By adding another five to six feet to the width of the stairwell, a clear vertical space can be accommodated with the stairs wrapping around it," Newell says. "This vertical space can even be enclosed to create a shaft if desired." This vertical space can then be used for rope training from floor to floor, he added.

A cornucopia of ideas

Several departments design rescue training into lofts and overhead areas. Chris Hecht, chief of the Sister Bay/Liberty Grove (Wis.) Fire Department, says his department incorporated several such training options inside its main station.

"We have about a 3-foot-square hatch through the floor of one of the mezzanines so we can do rescue or tripod work," Hecht says. "It's applicable to confined space or a manhole where you can set up a tripod over a hole."

Rope rescue training requires a special type of strong anchors that are attached to a wall or steel column that has been reinforced to support them, Hecht says, adding that his department also has two different styles of sprinkler heads so firefighters can practice closing and resetting a sprinkler system once deployed.

A structure exists in the front mezzanine that Hecht described as a metal and concrete stair. On the bottom steps they built a platform with four wooden steps out from the concrete steps. This lets them remove and replace individual steps, yet offers the safety of a real step right below.

"Let's say the firefighter goes up the stairs fine, but when they come back down we can remove a step, so it's like the fire has burned through the stair and keeps them in the practice of sounding the stair," Hecht says. "Just because you went up it doesn't mean it's okay when you come down."

The department also uses different types of black-out masks for training in the stairwell. "It was all relatively inexpensive stuff," Hecht says.

Mike Baker, assistant chief of the Elgin (Ill.) Fire Department, was involved in the construction of several stations. The most recent, located in the center of Elgin's response districts and designed by FGM Architects of Oak Brook, Ill., features a centralized classroom training facility that can accommodate 32 firefighters.

A large whiteboard is located at the front of the room, as is a wall-mounted television with speaker system. The classroom has adjustable overhead lighting and remote-controlled electric blinds on the exterior windows the instructor can adjust for daytime viewing. An LCD projector is connected to an independent computer system that can accept any laptop plugged into numerous wall outlets.

"It's all wireless — with mouse, laser pointer [and] a PowerPoint controller built in, [it's] pretty much standalone," Baker says, adding that the system can accommodate DVDs and VCRs and is connected to the Internet so the department can view streaming video. "Probably the only thing it does not do at this time is Webcam," he says.

The Glendale (Ariz.) Regional Public Safety Training Center has installed tie offs — special hooks in the ceiling — in some of its classrooms. These classrooms are used for training by the department's tactical-rescue team. This feature was created by Larry Enyart of Phoenix-based LEA Architects, who designed blocking into the ceiling to withstand the stress and weight.

Enyart believes in multipurpose station designs that incorporate training. One example is a new project his firm created for the Tolleson (Ariz.) Fire Department. "I like to combine things to serve more than one duty," he says. "The 2-story stairwell was extended to a third level with two platforms for firefighters to rappel. This tower is also the communication tower, the elevator, a cooling tower for the desert climate and the training tower."

The exterior of the masonry tower includes cast-in-place concrete panels that undulate, simulating a rock-climbing scenario. A sand pit was created at the bottom of the wall in case of a mishap, Enyart says.

Newell also suggested that, for a little more money and the space of the average trash bin pad, a drafting pit can be placed on site to test pumpers and personnel. "Depending on the capacity of your apparatus, a single pit or two pits will be necessary," Newell says.

According to Brian Harris of Seattle-based TCA Architecture Planning, the Marysville (Wash.) Fire District incorporated a fire sprinkler riser assembly that supports a variety of training activities. From the riser assembly, mock sprinkler heads in various configurations can be charged in a waterproofed storage area for training. In addition, a device-awareness wall was created adjacent to the riser assembly that includes commonly found pull stations, smoke detectors and strobes, so firefighters can identify them and see how each device behaves in an activated situation. Devices will continue to be added over time.

Some departments, however, aren't convinced of the need to incorporate training into fire station design. For instance, the Phoenix Fire Department does most of its training at regional training centers, its fire academy or within its service area, according to Deputy Chief Ken Leake.

"We have community rooms with tabletop training, but not like we've seen in some of the fire stations around where they build elements in the building to help them train," Leake says.

Leake added that departments that engage in this activity do so for logistical or practical reasons.

"It's a long drive to the training academy or it's a rural department and they don't have access to a training academy," he says.

Hobbit Trails

A couple years ago, in a presentation at FIRE CHIEF's Station Style conference, Mark Shoemaker of the Cincinnati architectural firm Cole + Russell, talked about one of his most unusual designs, for confined-space training.

It was created for the city of Blue Ash, Ohio. A storm pipe was used to connect a manhole to a basement space. In turn, the basement space was connected to two spaces above it. Different confined-space training scenarios were created using storm pipes, barrels and boxes.

"It was almost like a hobbit trail," Shoemaker says.

He added that he since has designed similar, smaller-scale versions of this concept into a couple other projects. "But Blue Ash is the most simple," Shoemaker says. "We used simple materials and ideas that had to be designed from the very beginning to get the spaces to align and to give them the maximum use of that feature."