Sunday will not be a day of rest for the Red Deer County Fire Department. They will be hold day-long training exercise south of the city with a controlled house burn. The house is at 3 McKenzie Drive, near the Leon’s Furniture south of Gasoline Alley. It has been used for the last two months as a training centre after it was donated to the department by the owners. Exercises at the house have included practising wall breaches and search and rescue techniques.
On Sunday, firefighters will finally get a live practice at knocking down flames.
“We haven’t done one in a couple of years,” said Lt. Cory Gunter-Smith. “It’s invaluable experience for the guys, because if they don’t make it to a structure fire call, they don’t see it for real unless we get a training situation like this.”
The fire will go rain, snow or shine — the only thing that will postpone it are high winds, which could blow smoke across Hwy 2 or make controlling the fire difficult. The fire department is asking the public to refrain from phoning emergency services to report the fire.