County of Grande Prairie firefighter training facility open [Video]

A $1.8 million state-of-the-art training facility has been opened at the County of Grande Prairie Regional Fire Service’s Dunes Fire Station.

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The facility will act as a regional training centre for firefighters with the City of Grande Prairie, MD of Greenview and beyond.

“This facility reduces our firefighters’ exposure to potential harmful carcinogens due to the clean burning propane and simulated smoke,” said County Fire Chief Trevor Grant.

The new facility uses propane and theatrical smoke, which has the added benefit of relighting fires quickly and giving firefighters the opportunity to do more training in less time.

For the past 13 years, the region has used a facility for training where they burned wood and hay for live fire training, said Grant. He added that after putting the fire out it could be difficult to …