South Australians will have increased protection against the threat of fire as Metropolitan Fire Service (MFS) personnel strengthen their expert skills at a new $4.3 million live fire training facility that is so innovative, it’s unparalleled in Australia.
MFS Chief Officer, Michael Morgan, and Minister for Emergency Services, Vincent Tarzia, officially launched the facility at the MFS Angle Park Training Centre yesterday.
The Angle Park Structural Firefighting Training Facility is a large ‘burn hall’ containing 16 shipping containers with a wide variety of live fire scenarios including house, business and high rise fires.
The MFS has drawn learnings from international fire services to design and deliver a unique training facility, the first of its kind in Australia.
It will provide MFS firefighters with a far more realistic and diverse training environment for structure fires throughout their careers.
Firefighters regularly battle fires in homes, businesses and high rise buildings and work to limit the risk of injury, and life, property and economic loss.
This modern burn hall is a state-of-the-art facility where crews can hone their skills, to the benefit of firefighters and the broader South Australian community.
“This unparalleled training facility is as real as it gets when it comes to fighting fires and will be well-used by more than 1,000 MFS personnel for decades to come,” Minister for Emergency Services, Vincent Tarzia, said.
“Crews will battle blazes in homes, businesses and high-rise buildings simulated by shipping containers in a unique design not seen anywhere else in Australia.”
“Without doubt, South Australian firefighters will have the best scenario training in the country,” he said.
“Access to this realistic and diverse training environment is a one-of-a-kind opportunity for MFS crews to be better prepared to save lives and property.”
MFS Chief Officer, Michael Morgan, said the burn hall represents a great achievement by the many MFS personnel who contributed to the design, planning and construction phases of this project.
“The facility will help our firefighters better predict and react to fire behaviour within a structure. This will not only enhance firefighter safety, but also help crews to reduce the property and financial losses that South Australians experience when fires occur in homes, businesses and high rise buildings.”
The burn hall delivers a far greater variety of basic, intermediate and complex live-fire training scenarios for firefighters, plus a breathing apparatus compressor and cylinder fill station.
With an asset life of up to 50 years, the hall will be used for training recruits and the ongoing training and upskilling of metropolitan and regional MFS firefighters of all ranks.
The facility also includes lecture rooms, purpose-built dirty-to-clean workflow areas, a briefing/debriefing room, workshop areas and an equipment drying room.
The internal access points of the shipping containers can be re-arranged throughout the life of the facility, increasing the number and variety of training scenarios available.
Smoke from live burns will be contained within the shed, collected and treated to minimise the impact on the local environment.
The facility supported 145 jobs throughout construction.