If you looked outside this morning in the LC Valley, you probably saw a huge plume of smoke. The Lewiston Fire Department got to burn down a former radio station building at the top of Thain Grade.
Students from the LC State Fire Service Technology program also got to take part. They were there to watch and learn how fire reacts.
“Part of it is they have an assignment. They have to predict how they think the fire is actually going to travel through the structure from our fire behavior training. And then they’re going to see some things that we call ‘flow path’ and some things in fire behavior that we can’t re-create in the classroom.”
Instructor Travis Myklebust says these students are lucky. This kind of training doesn’t come along very often.
“We build little doll houses and we burn that, which gives them the concept, but to have a building of this size, it just doesn’t happen very often.”
The building took more than an hour to burn and by the end, Myklebust says the students’ ideas of fire behavior changed.
“We talk about it in the classroom, but to see it, that’s the game-changer because it’s reality now.”
He says when the students graduate and become firefighters, they can remember this information and possibly save someone trapped.
We spoke with owner Steve Carlton, who was there watching. He says the unburned remains of the building will be pushed down with a dozer. He has no immediate plans for the site.
