Issue date: 7/25/02 Section: Front Page

The Texas Engineering and Extension Services (TEEX) is holding the 73rd annual municipal fire training school at the Brayton Fire Training Facility this week. It is the largest live fire training facility in the nation, said Marilyn Martell, director of public information at TEEX.

The Brayton Fire Training Facility was established by a former chemistry professor from Texas A&M.

Before 1960, fire training was performed on the A&M campus, said Pat Barrett, a director for the training school.

Cary Roccaforde, a guide and instructor with the Municipal Recruit Center, said about 2,267 volunteer firefighters attended this year's municipal training school and about 140 highly qualified instructors are present to help train them.

This is the third of four weeks in the training program. The first week was Spanish school, which firefighters from as far as Venezuela and Brazil attend. This year, over 600 Spanish members attended. The second week was Emergency Response and Rescue school, and the fourth is industrial week, he said.

Roccaforde has been involved in firefighting since he was 15 years old and has seen the Brayton Fire Training Field develop into 126 acres of props used to train the firefighters in different situations.

There are 135 props that simulate real life situations a firefighter may come in contact with in his or her career, ranging from a house fire to chemical, industrial, and transportation fires, he said.

The training facility also has an area called "Disaster City," a simulated train wreck, rubble pile and a destroyed building used to train the firefighters in how to handle a natural disaster such as a tornado or hurricane.

Sometimes college students are recruited to play victims in these scenes and the firemen must rescue them from "Disaster City," Roccaforde said.

The students at the training school start their day at 8 a.m. and work until 8 p.m. During training, the students rotate between different types of fires and listening to lectures on how to assess different situations.

Heather Allen, a volunteer firefighter since the age of 16, said this is the first time she has been able to attend Brayton. Although she has been with the Klein Fire Department in Houston for a long time, she is new to the Brazos County Fire Department.

"It just looked like fun and I figured I might as well give back to the community," Allen said.

Wednesday night at an open house at the facility, the firefighters demonstrated the latest firefighting techniques on several of the props at the training field and children were treated to fire safety instruction.

"I never knew that fighting fires was so organized. It is interesting to see what the firefighters do in their training," said Brooke Swindle, a visitor to Brayton and A&M Class of 2002 graduate.

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