Planned house fire serves as training for Biloxi Fire Department

Typically, the Biloxi Fire Department is putting out house fires, but this morning that was not the case. The fire department set fire to a home for training purposes.
Biloxi firefighters watched as a deliberate house fire engulfed a home on Camp Wilkes Road. It wasn’t arson, but a training exercise to allow firefighters to get an idea of how quickly a fire can get out of control. Fire Chief Joe Boney said, “We talk about an adrenaline rush in the fire service and you don’t get the full adrenaline rush unless it’s an actual fire. This is an actual fire so it gives us pretty close to that adrenaline rush and it gives these younger guys an opportunity to feel that adrenaline and how to use it to your advantage.”
This is the first time in nearly two years that the Biloxi Fire Department has had a chance to do training like this in a real home. For many of the firefighters this is the first time they have handled fire of this magnitude. Firefighter Kelton Peterson said, “It’s pretty intense. We started the fire inside one of the rooms and I was on the nozzle. They start the fire and it gets really hot quickly and the whole room smokes up and a lot of heat and we had to keep control of it because that’s part of our training and it’s awesome because it is my first time inside of an actual house fire.”
Torching the house put firefighters in a reality situation where they would have to learn how to battle the flames as well as make real time decisions. “Normally in a situation with a house fire, people don’t understand the only thing you will see is a glow and that is it. You can’t tell where it is, what it is, you have no depth perception or anything like that. So there are a lot of things you have to learn.”