Firefighter Training with Hannah Smith
A new state-of-the-art facility for training the regions firefighters has opened it's doors for the first time ever.
TFM were given exclusive access to County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service's new facility in Bowburn.
Full-time firefighters, retained firefighters and new recruits will all be put through their paces at the new site which opened on Monday.
The fire service share the training centre with Durham Constabulary and can hire the site out for commercial training.
The centre covers 4.5 acres and has facilities to train in flood response, animal rescue and even has a full scale roundabout and junction to deal with car crashes.
Robin Turnbull is the Training Manager, he says the fire service must adapt training to respond to demand.
He said:
"The fire service is much more focused on fire and rescue.
The amount of rescues and the diverse nature and the range of rescues that we go to range from bariatic people trapped in houses to small domestic animals or wildlife."
All the training rigs we've got are focused on increasing the skills, increasing the operational competence of our firefighters."
The centre can also train incident commanders, who are in charge of fire crews when they attend incidents, to make decisions under pressure.
It will be officially opened on the 3rd September; it hasn't yet been confirmed who will be doing the honours.