Igniting Readiness

For the past 35 years, Louisville, Kentucky firefighters have honed their skills using a prefabricated fire tower. While the vertical tower provided valuable experience, it didn’t offer authentic training for fires occurring in the shotgun and camelback houses found in the city’s older neighborhoods.

Recognizing the need for more diverse training environments, Louisville Fire Department leaders used a Sourcewell cooperative contract with WHP Trainingtowers to design the Louisville Fire Department Burn Building Training Center. Costing $1.4 million, this one-of-a-kind training facility simulates real-life fires in narrow lot houses, apartments, and four-plexes.

Louisville Assistant Chief Bobby Cooper called it an effort in authenticity. “We were able to design it ourselves to meet specifications of the community that we serve,” said Cooper. Unlike the training tower, the new burn building incorporates three distinct building types within its structure and includes five rooms, enabling firefighters to replicate nearly any residential or commercial fire.

“What this building does is it allows us to get that hands-on training in a controlled environment and a safe way,” Cooper explained. The facility not only allows for fire suppression and attack training through live burns but also supports a range of other skills. Firefighters can practice throwing ladders, rappelling, rope techniques, and rooftop scenarios.

To bring this state-of-the-art facility to life, the Louisville Fire Department relied on Sourcewell cooperative purchasing. Sourcewell made it easy for fire department leaders to confidently select a meticulously vetted, awarded supplier. “What Sourcewell and what WHP were able to do through their cooperative purchasing process and procurement process, they were able to streamline it, answer simple questions that we had,” Cooper said.

“When you start talking to vendors, asking for pamphlets, going on websites, RFP processes, engineers, and engineers and bids and specs isn’t something I got into this business for,” Cooper said. “We’re firefighters that needed a prop that could a job at the end of the day, and they knew what we needed, and they were tremendous support.”

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