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AMERICAN FORK CANYON — Rookie firefighters got some on-hands experience Tuesday afternoon in a controlled structure fire.
Smoke might have been coming out of a building in the mouth of American Fork Canyon, but it wasn't an emergency. The fire, controlled by the Lone Peak Fire Department, was a training exercise for firefighters.
Danny Campbell is part the Lone Peak fire department, where they really push their firefighters to learn in a true-to-life environment.
"When we get inside a room that is charged with fire and smoke, the heat is a lot more than I anticipated," Campbell said. "We don't get a chance to go on a lot of structure fires, we train the best we can from a classroom standpoint, but it is really good to have hands-on (experience) and feel what it is like in the heat and to see how the fire reacts to our actions."
Instructors from the Utah Fire and Rescue Academy create different situations, and each firefighter is evaluated on his response.
"They are observing the whole time, and when the scenario is done, they come out and critique what we have done so that we can learn from our mistakes," said Lone Peak Fire Department Capt. Joe McRae.
