When a fire department gets a new fire station, it often takes the opportunity to build in an area or several spaces where training props and equipment can be used to practice various firefighting functions, such as hose and ladder drills, bailout training, rappelling, and confined space work.
Carol Ann Kesler, executive associate for BRW Architects, a firm that specializes in public safety facilities, says the decision to incorporate training props in a fire station usually takes place early in the planning and design process. “A mezzanine over the apparatus bays offers a number of opportunities for training props,” Kesler points out. “We’ve put a manhole cover in a mezzanine floor with space around the hole for a tripod leading to a clear area below that can be used for confined space training. Also, rappelling anchors can be placed on the mezzanine floor or located on the sides facing the bays.”
Kesler notes that several stations BRW has designed have doors in the mezzanine that open out into the bays, with anchors above the door and directly across the bays from the doors, so firefighters can rig lines to raise and lower a Stokes basket. “They can also do ladder training off similar openings in the mezzanine,” she says.
“We’ve also designed an opening on the far side of the bays with an exterior balcony that has a typical residential window which opens into either a storage mezzanine or a staircase landing.”
For the Lewisville (TX) Fire Department, BRW designed a parapet at the top of a three-story stair tower with a flat roof that has several anchor points which can be used for rappelling and high angle work as well as for ladder training, Kesler says. “For Victoria (TX) Fire Department Station 4, we put in a hose tower with a metal staircase and a window in the tower for rappelling and ladder training and a standpipe for making hose connections and advancing hose up stairs,” she adds.
Bob Mitchell, senior architect for Wendel/Mitchell Associates Architects, which also specializes in fire station design, says his firm has designed a variety of props inside fire stations. “We’ve designed openings the size of residential windows on mezzanines with an Ipe wood protective gate, which is the hardest wood available so it’s durable, along with fittings for tie-off points,” Mitchell says. “We’ve also put in metal-covered holes for the pick end of a halligan tool that can be used to simulate the halligan in a residential wall as a tie-off point.”
1 BRW Architects designed window openings cut into a mezzanine wall in Waco (TX) Fire Department Station No. 3 that can be used for bailout training and ladder work. (Photo 1 courtesy of BRW Architects.)
2 A firefighter practices his bailout technique from a mezzanine window and anchor point designed by Wendel/Mitchell Associates Architects for a Schoharie (NY) Fire Department station. (Photo 2 courtesy of Wendel/Mitchell Associates Architects.)
3 Fire Facilities built this live fire training prop for the Bentonville (AR) Fire Department. (Photo 3 courtesy of Fire Facilities.)
Wendel/Mitchell has also designed lots of manhole-covered holes in mezzanine floors for use in bailout and confined space training, Mitchell notes. “We’ve also designed a movable mask maze for a station mezzanine,” he says. “We