WATCH: Lessons learned from burning down a house

The Pocatello Fire Department’s Burn and Learn Training took place on March 31 and April 1. | Video by Logan Ramsey, EastIdahoNews.com

POCATELLO – A group of firefighters stood by and watched while smoke billowed out of a house Tuesday afternoon.

However, this house was not occupied by any residents, and while there was a property owner, he arrived later to watch the fire. The firefighters of the Pocatello Fire Department were at the end of their two-day Burn and Learn Training, where they practiced various firefighting techniques on a house that was no longer in use.

“It’s invaluable experience,” said Assistant Fire Chief Shane Grow. “You can try different things. You can practice; you can try different techniques to see what the best method is.”

This was the first Burn and Learn training that PFD has been able to do in several years, Grow said, because they can’t just build a fire in any house that a property owner volunteers.

“A lot of people have offered us houses to burn, but it’s not as frequent as we would like. If there’s any asbestos in there, if there’s holes in the floor, if there’s something that’s not really safe that we’re worried about, we can’t,” Grow said.

Brandon Desfosses, the owner of the house at 3534 Jason Avenue, plans to build townhomes on the land. He would have had to pay for demolition if he hadn’t volunteered it for the fire department’s training.

“It gives them training, it saves us a lot of money, and then you’re getting an opportunity to do more affordable housing. (Now) we’re able to build townhomes here and hopefully make it affordable for people to buy,” Desfosses said.

During the two-day training, the fire department conducted 16 exercises, half of which took place each day. Two platoons, each comprised of 26 firefighters, participated in the training in shifts while keeping other firefighters on overtime to maintain operational efficiency.

An exercise would start with one team, which Grow called a safety team, lighting a fire in one of the rooms. They would allow the fire to spread in that room until it got large enough for the entry team to practice “attack and ventilation coordination.”

“As they come in, they’ll spray water … and then at the same time, they want to ventilate a window, a door to allow that hot fire (and) combustion gasses out, and so it brings cool air in and lets the hot gasses go out. It improves ventilation. It improves visibility. It just gives us a safer environment to operate in,” Grow said.

Once the firefighters were finished with their exercises, they set another fire in the basement and allowed the house to burn down. Before this, they had the power lines turned off and cut down trees near the house.

“We’re limiting our exposure to other buildings and other properties, so that this is the only thing that we damage with intention,” Grow said.

Grow explained that the experience gained by the firefighters is something that the whole community benefits from.

“The faster we can put (fires) out, the less damage there is to the home, the more we can save those citizens in the community,” Grow said.