New El Dorado Hills training facility can better prepare firefighters for emergencies
EL DORADO HILLS — A new state-of-the-art training facility in El Dorado Hills is helping firefighters prepare for emergencies.
It sits on a quiet cul-de-sac, but what goes on inside is anything but.
El Dorado Fire Chief Maurice Johnson said it's different than what he trained on.
"What I trained on was your traditional 3-4 story tower," he said.
Johnson said those traditional towers are something they really don't have in El Dorado Hills. What they do have are homes — a lot of them and with plenty of grassy, open space.
This was designed to simulate exactly that. One building is a 6,500-square-foot home with multiple rooms. The other is 3,500 square feet.
"We really need to focus on what are the things we typically have incidents in, and frankly, that is residential style structures, both large homes and smaller homes," Johnson said.
This new facility allows firefighters to see how a building is going to react to flames, what smoke conditions will be like, and even see the flow path of a fire.
"Prior to the training center, they were trying to use businesses that were closed," Johnson said. "We'd work with the business owners and once they were closed, we'd practice on their facilities. But obviously, we can't light those on fire, can't smoke those out, can't flow water in those."
With this new facility, just about anything can be thrown at firefighters, which makes for a better, "safer" response.
"This has been a 20-year vision," Johnson said. "This wasn't a yesterday decision. Twenty years, this agency has been planning this training facility but we've done a lot of planning over the years."
The total cost of the facility was about $13 million and includes an outdoor classroom and storage area. The department plans to add to it down the road.