LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Firefighters in Louisville now have a new place to learn and train.
On Tuesday, the Louisville Fire Department dedicated a new Fire Academy Burn Building on West Hill Street.
It's named in honor of former fire chief Greg Frederick, who served 24 years as chief and helped design the project.
"Training has always been a major focus of our department," he said. "It's vital to our firefighters, and having a great facility to train in, it just makes the job so much better."
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The new building is across from the old training tower, which the department said is better suited for tall structure training.
This new facility was built custom for Louisville Fire to mimic conditions firefighters would find in urban houses and apartments in the city.
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"This is very unique," Chief Brian O'Neill said. "It has a lot of the conditions that are similar to the types of buildings that you will find throughout Old Louisville, West Louisville, Butchertown, areas like that. The areas where our firefighters will be making responses."
The $1.4 million project features five burn rooms, a roof training platform, and wireless smoke machine that's piped throughout the building.
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