SALT LAKE CITY -- Fire departments from across the Salt Lake Valley gather on a weekly basis to train on how to put out a live fire.
"We're trying to mimic a real fire as much as we can, so you have diminished visibility, you have heat, you have noise and you're amped up to just get in there and put out the fire,” said Salt Lake Fire Battalion Chief Karl Steadman.
The multi-department training gives firefighters the opportunity to work with other agencies as well as a chance to train with live fire scenarios.
“As we train together, we're more proficient on how we train on the drill ground here and that conveys over to the incident scene as well,” said Steadman.
The drills are a requirement of the National Fire Protection Agency.
Firefighters find Salt Lake’s training site ideal because of its unique six-story training tower.
“More and more Salt Lake City, we run with different agencies, they run with us on incidents and it's important we understand how we each operate,” said Steadman.
The Salt Lake City Fire Department is constructing a new addition to the training facility. The new addition should be complete in the next few weeks.
