For the average person on the highway a 53-foot trailer and the truck that pulls it may be a nuisance. For retail workers, trailers signify the arrival of new products. For the Naval Air Station (NAS) Fallon Federal Fire Department, one particular trailer entails new training opportunities.

"The trainer is a Class 'A' type trainer; which essentially means that once firefighters have lit the fire they cannot flip a switch and turn it off," said Brain Arnold, a fire instructor. "It's the closest and safest type of training that you can get for firefighters without actually burning down a structure."

Arnold stated that firefighters will be able to replicate different types of burn scenarios, from performing fire attacks, practicing search techniques, rappelling from the tower, confined space and reduced profile drills. This allows them to train exactly like they want to perform when on an actual emergency.

"This trainer allows us to practice a wide variety of situations that we couldn't always train on before," said Dennis Ing, Fallon Federal Fire's Training Chief. "It provides us with the opportunity to give our guys the most realistic training possible."

The modular design of the trailer has inside walls that are completely reconfigurable, allowing for a wide variety of training scenarios while simultaneously building variation in the safest possible training environment. The trailer has insulated doors, wireless thermocouples used to transmit interior temperatures, and a burn room that can be isolated to allow the fire to burn itself out.

"Multiple safety features allow firefighters to practice and perform like they need to in an actual emergency," said Arnold. "A roof hatch can be opened from outside of the burn room to allow heat and smoke to escape while firefighters are in a position of safety and the rappelling tower has multiple anchor points for safety lines to be attached when used for upper level operations."

The trainer is also equipped with a crawl space with multiple access points, a repel tower, a slanted roof and several replaceable access points to allow for true-to-life forced or roof entry scenarios, or different venting exercises.

While an important asset for the Federal Fire team, this trailer will be an important training tool for the rest of the base as well, said Ing.

"The best part about this trainer is we can share it with other entities on base," said Ing. "Whether we lend out the repelling tower, or set it up so we can practice joint responses, like an active shooter scenario, it's really a win-win for all of us on NAS Fallon."

For more news from Naval Air Station Fallon, visit www.navy.mil/.