Fire Training Center

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In 2008, voters approved the sale of bonds to purchase land and build a firefighter training facility, to include live fire props. The property was purchased by the City from Home Depot at the end of November.

The Olympia Fire Training Center will occupy approximately 4 acres of an 8 acre site bounded by Georgia Pacific to the east and the Olympia Woodland Trail to the north. Access will be via the north entrance to the Home Depot.

The Fire Training Center will feature large open areas for firefighters to train with their fire hoses, fire engines and ladders. The Olympia Fire Training Center will provide this open space along with runoff capturing infrastructure so that the new impermeable surface will not affect the undeveloped property to the west.

The primary feature of phase one of this project will be a five story commercial training tower. This five story block building has been designed to simulate a number of styles of comercial occupancies that firefighters could be called to in the City of Olympia. Interior rooms will simulate a commercial kitchen, apartment style rooms, and hotel lobby and basement mechanical areas. Training officers will be able to fill this structure with theatrical smoke and certain rooms will be able to produce propane fed fires that the firefighters can extinguish. All of this "training" is carefully controlled with the ability to remove all the smoke and heat in one minute for safety if something should go wrong in the teaching environment.  The exterior of this tower will allow for multiple access points for ladder access and anchors for rappelling and rescue simulations. Phase one is expected to be complete by the fall of 2011.

Phase two, dependent upon additional funding, will add a residential training tower, classrooms and other training simulators to create a one of a kind facility for firefighter training in the region.

Schedule for 2010:

• Bid Documents available at the end of March
• Bid Opening at the end of April/May 2010
• Open Fire Training Center Fall of 2011