The first Live Fire Training event was hosted at the Saskatoon Fire Department’s new Regional Training Facility this week.

Anthony Tataryn, Assistant Fire Chief for Saskatoon, says the region gained 13 new live fire instructors as a result. The new training facility, which is shared between the Warman, Martensville, and Saskatoon fire departments, was developed to provide a location for consistent, repeatable training such as this.

City of Warman Fire Chief Russ Austin says the three communities work together all the time, so a regional training facility that they could all utilize only made sense.

“Working with Saskatoon and Martensville in this endeavor, as far as partnership for growth, I think it (regional training facilities) is the future,” Austin admits.

The live fire training takes place inside several shipping containers, which provide an engineered environment capable of eliminating variables found in real-world experiences.

“It might look like a couple of sea cans, but really it’s an engineered environment that allows us to instruct, observe, and practice skillsets with the controls that aren’t found in real world experience,” Tataryn explains.

The sea-can has a defined fire load inside, and the participants take turns playing instructor rolls while the live fire burns on. They look at thermal variances and what the smoke is doing as the fire evolves, and then use those factors as teaching points while they work to reset the blaze. The facility is relatively new, with only Phase one being complete. This included the area for live fire training, a large, paved area for driving evolutions, and a means of collecting and recycling the water they use during training.

Phase 2 of construction includes the development of an indoor facility to allow for year-round training, something that Tataryn says would be very beneficial in Saskatchewan’s winter months.