Firefighters learn about unfamiliar dangers at a place called Disaster City
COLLEGE STATION (CBSNewsTexas.com) – There's a place where firefighters learn the lessons from West, one of the deadliest fires and explosions in recent Texas history.
It's where mistakes from the past have been studied and new ways to attack chemical fires are taught.
"Looking at what happened up there, ammonium nitrate is very common fertilizer used throughout the country, throughout the world," said Randy McGregor, associate division director at the Emergency Services Training Institute. "After looking at that, TEEX developed an eight hour course that we provide across the state at various locations."
McGregor oversees training at a place called Disaster City and its adjacent fire field on nearly 300 acres in College Station, operated by the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service.
"There is no other complex in the United States or in the world, that actually compares to this," said firefighter James Belluomini, with the Lubrizol Fire Department.
Belluomini is a veteran firefighter from a department outside Houston. As a member of a special task force, he was in the town of West back in 2013 only minutes after the explosion that killed 12 first responders.
"Throughout my career, I've been involved in many emergencies, many instances, but West for one is actually one that will remain with me throughout my life," Belluomini said.
There's an eight hour course on responding to fires involving ammonium nitrate because of the death and devastation it caused in West.
"It hits home," Belluomini said. "Twelve firefighters were killed, by nature that's what I am, I'm a firefighter and I look at all firefighters as brothers and sisters."
"I think looking back, how things are stored, how they are dealt with on an emergency response level, just exactly how ammonium nitrate reacts to different fuels," McGregor said.
Preventing another West tragedy and protecting firefighters from the unfamiliar dangers they may face is only part of what goes on at Disaster City.
It's also where first responders can virtually relive some of our worst disasters and develop better ways to approach them with the goal of saving more lives in the future.
A collapsed structure is supposed to mirror the remnants of the Oklahoma City federal building and World Trade Center.
There are other replicated disaster scenes that firefighters like Landon Bissett say gives them much more confidence when they put on their gear everyday and face the possibility of encountering not only dangerous fires, but also collapsed buildings and train derailments.
"It allows us to have that experience in our back pocket," Bissett said.
It's billed as the largest fire field in the world and with Disaster City next door, it's where elite emergency crews prepare each day for things they hope to never see in the real world.
