Live Fire Training Location A Need

Fond du Lac Fire Chief Peter O’Leary says they do need a live fire training facility. The City continues to explore a police and fire training facility, but the price of the option they were looking at was $5.2 million, which the City Council and staff felt was too expensive. Chief O’Leary says there is only so much they can do to simulate fire situations in training scenarios. He says occasionally someone will give them a house or building they can use for live fire training, but even then they have a number of issues to deal with. He says the DNR and EPA don’t care for it because there are asbestos and other issues. He says they are also not safe for firefighters and the fires irritate neighbors. He says as a fire chief one of his biggest fears is that our firefighters don’t’ have enough real live fire training.