BOISE, Idaho — For most people it's a bad day if their home catches fire, but if it’s already slated for demolition Boise Fire might be interested in burning it down for you — all in the name of training.
“We often get asked to burn down people's houses, and there are certain circumstances where we can do that,” said Training Captain Joe Lunghofer, with Boise Fire.
The department accepts donated buildings for single family to commercial and uses them in a variety of ways.
Hear from Captain Lunghofer about the program and how it helps firefighters
“Cutting holes in the roof, we’re breaking windows, we're stretching our hose lines inside, flowing water inside — all the way up to live fire where we actually burn down the structure,” Lunghofer said.
Boise Fire also has an extensive training center where they can set up different practice scenarios, but unfamiliar real-world buildings make for great training grounds.
“Guys understand what it looks like, I mean we could change the configuration so much that it looks different at different times, depending on how we modify it, but nothing beats the realism that we get from these structures,” Lunghofer said.
Sometimes, a live fire burn of an acquired structure isn't an option.
“There’s a lot of times where it’s too close to the neighbors house, it could cause too many problems. Air quality is something that we often run into during the summer and even during the winter during the inversions,” he said.
In those cases, donated buildings can still be put to use for other training, such as forcible entry, cutting ventilation holes and searching for victims.
“The acquired structure program provides the realism that makes our training something that we can’t match here at the training center,” Lunghofer said.
Property owners can even save some money on demolition if the training is destructive.
“When we do a complete burn down, our goal is to burn that structure completely to the ground," Lunghofer said. "This is a way to give back to the community. It’s going to make us better as a fire department, which is going to make the community ultimately safer."
