The state of Ohio is building a new house for firefighters – to prepare them for the kinds of real-life situations they get on the job. Statehouse correspondent Karen Kasler reports.
It’ll be a two-story, wood framed, 1500 square foot house that’ll cost $300,000, and it comes with electricity, heating and ventilation – just like the structures where most fires happen. Fire Marshal Kevin Reardon says it’ll be built on the training campus in Columbus next to the structures they now use that were built more than half a century ago.
“We're training the next generation firefighters on this type of a resource that we're making do. But it's not the best ideal situation moving forward. We need to build the latest, greatest, biggest, baddest training facility because Ohio firefighters deserve that. And beyond that, the citizens of Ohio deserve to have the best trained firefighters.”
There are about 38,000 firefighters in the state of Ohio, and last year about 10,000 of those were trained at the Columbus campus or worked with state instructors. The training does cost fire departments, but Reardon said the goal is to make training free for volunteer fire departments.
Gov. Mike DeWine said this kind of scenario-based training is so important that he wants police officers to have a similar training campus too, and a dedicated fund to make sure they have the money for that training.
DeWine said the budget includes about $40 million for police training, but he says that dedicated fund would ensure money is set aside in every budget.
