Three local fire departments participated in a training burn Saturday morning in a vacant house on Rock Island Street in Knoxville. The structure had previously been used for training purposes, but without live fire. The departments trained on fire behavior, attack strategies and more. Knoxville Firefighter Travis Delaney says that this training provided invaluable experience, especially for newer members.

“We’ve got a lot of new people, including myself. We’ve had fires around here, but nothing to this extent, so it was nice getting in there, working as a team. We’re young, we’ve got a few older people here where you can only do so much, so having a live fire is a really integral part of training to get that feel for it. It was a live burn, I mean it could happen tomorrow. So it gives us another tool to familiarize with it.”

The Knoxville Fire Department, Knoxville Township Rural Fire Department and Melcher-Dallas Fire Department were on scene. Instructors from Monroe Township, Altoona and Springville Fire Departments helped provide training.