Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
- Sandy Fire Station 31's new sim room offers hands-on fire safety training for firefighters and the public.
- The room simulates realistic fire scenarios, teaching escape techniques and extinguisher use.
- Fire prevention supervisor Kimberly Hornberger emphasizes such education to reduce fire-related injuries.
SANDY — Firefighters say house fires far too often leave people injured or dead, so Sandy crews are hoping to save lives with hands-on training in some very real scenarios inside the new Fire Station 31 "sim room."
"This is our sim room. We use this room to simulate a fire, what it would be like, how you can escape and how to use a fire extinguisher," said Kimberly Hornberger, fire prevention supervisor at Sandy Fire Department.
From a kitchen with working appliances including a stove that appears to catch fire and smoke to a bedroom where instructors teach escape techniques, Hornberger said the sim room offers opportunities to educate adults and children alike.
She said many adults do not know how to properly put out a fire inside an oven or on top of a stove.
"They'll either run with a burning pan, or they'll try to throw water on a pan fire," Hornberger said. "All those things are not good for a fire, and they cause it to be bigger and a lot more injuries to happen."
Children, meanwhile, tend to hide under beds or inside closets during house fires, according to Hornberger.
"So, we have a kid that starts out in the bed, and we have a smoke alarm go off," Hornberger described of one scenario. "They know that they're going to now walk to the door, and they're going to feel that door with the back of their hand and see if it's hot. If it's hot, they know the fire is on the other side. I don't ever want them to go out that door, because that is when they can get hurt or have smoke inhalation."
Hornberger said the door is electronically heated and will feel hot to the touch, while an "outside" window in the room further allows children to understand potential escapes.
"They are going to open that window," Hornberger continued to explain. "If they're on the first or basement floors, they're going to take out the screen and crawl through that window, and we actually practice crawling through that window and how to escape out of that room. We talk about if we're on the upstairs floors and there's no ladder available, you're going to stay right there, you're going to yell and scream, maybe throw out a pillow to let firefighters know immediately when we get on scene that is where a kid is at, and we're going to go there first."
Hornberger said Fire Station 31 is believed to be one of the very first fire stations to have a simulator like this built inside of it.
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Sandy's new Fire Station 31 aims to enhance community safety and lower cancer risks for firefighters.She said the department has found education helps to reduce potential house fire deaths and injuries.
"Our fire chief (Ryan McConaghie) is passionate about education, and he has prioritized that and has been able to give us the tools that we can now educate the public in what to do when there is a fire," Hornberger said.
Hornberger said the fire department offers a variety of training sessions and education classes through its website and groups can reach out to prevention@sandy.utah.gov to schedule training sessions.
She said because modern construction tends to use more oils and plastics, the average time it takes for a home to become fully engulfed has gone from approximately 17 minutes to 2.5 minutes, underscoring the importance of proper training and decisive action.
"A kitchen fire like that is happening on a daily basis, if not multiple times a day," Hornberger said. "Learning what to do, how to respond so you can not have those injuries and so you can get out safely and get your kids out safely is the most important thing."
