House set for demolition provides realistic training for Salt Lake Valley fire crews

HOLLADAY – Fire departments from across the Salt Lake Valley came together in Holladay Monday morning for a rare live fire training exercise.

Using a home set to be demolished, crews got the chance to train in a real house under controlled conditions.

Unified Fire Chief Jay Torgersen says the training brought together firefighters from several departments.

"We have stations from across the valley that frequently get called upon to respond to fires together, and being able to train on different scenarios is valuable," Torgersen said. "You run into problems, problem solved, and you move on. So to be able to do this and pretend that it's real in a real structure is awesome."

That hands-on experience is difficult to recreate in a traditional training environment. Torgersen says firefighters regularly train in purpose-built facilities, but working inside an actual home presents challenges they don't always encounter elsewhere.

"We have our training structures, but those are structures that we use over and over, and they're really good," Torgersen said. "But it's the same structure every single time with a few adjustments."

"To be able to go into a real structure, with our charged hose lines, it's really valuable for our firefighters," he added.

Unified Fire says they need more opportunities like this — and they actually encourage property owners planning to demolish a building to contact the department's training division to see if it could be used for future exercises.

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