Rancho Santa Fe Local 4349 Firefighter's Richard LaFleur and Haydne Shimer construct a training dollhouse. During the first year of a new firefighter's career, they are instructed to build a small version of a house. We then ignite a fire in the lower room and examine how the fire behaves, where the smoke travels, and when the conditions could become dangerous. By controlling the air flow into the fire, these firefighters can simulate backdraft situations where smoke and fire explode out of an open door. By training in this manner, we avoid putting our firefighters in harms way but are still able to learn in a real fire environment.
