In about two years, the old Ritchie’s Furniture Warehouse will be renovated into the Elizabethton Police Department headquarters.
Until that time, it will find usefulness with the Elizabethton Fire Department by housing some of its firefighter training programs. The EFD started using the empty warehouse for training Wednesday with more sessions expected over the coming months.
EFD Capt. Steve Murray said the RIT and Mayday training would be the first sessions completed by the firefighters.
RIT, or rapid intervention training, focuses on the process of removing a downed firefighter from a burning building. Mayday training is training for the other side of that situation. It looks at what firefighters should do if they are injured while inside a structure fire.
“This is just a refresher,” Murray said. “Everyone has already had this training before. This is a great opportunity for us to have more training while this building is available.”
The goal of RIT training is to have two firefighters ready to respond on the scene of a fire if a fellow firefighter is trapped in the building, Murray said.
“They would be suited up with their tools ready to go in if they are needed,” he said. “They will have already scouted out the building and have looked for an alternate way in and out.”
It is rare for the department to have access to a vacant building that could be used for the different types of training the department needs, Murray said. Because the building had been used as a warehouse and was scheduled to be remodeled before being used as the EPD offices, the firefighters could really get into their training exercises, he said.
“We can be a little rougher in the training,” he said. “There were some buildings that we could not drag a fire hose over the floor so it wouldn’t damage it, or we would have to be careful about the trim and woodwork inside. This building had been used as a warehouse so it is perfect for what we are doing.”
While Wednesday’s training was “simple”, Murray said additional training sessions were planned focusing on ladder work, search and rescue and bailing out from the second story windows. He said the building would not be damaged in the training, and no actual fires would be set inside.
“This is a great opportunity for us to have access to this building,” he said. “It provides us with good training opportunities that we don’t always get.”
During the training sessions, Murray said one lane of traffic on East F St. in front of the warehouse could be blocked to traffic.