Training Tower

Retired Chief Oscar Presley said, “When we first received the five acres and built Station Three, I planned for a training tower on the back half and had pine trees planted around the field so by the time they were big, they helped block the homes in the subdivision that grew up to the north of the station.”

On October 8, 2003, the department broke ground behind Station Three on a training burn tower. On September 18, 2004, the department hosted an Open House and surprised him by dedicating the facility as ‘The Oscar Presley Training Facility.’

The training tower is a two-story building that has a maze of rooms and a four-story tower. It can be rapidly filled with smoke that allows the firefighters to perform search and rescue evolutions repeatedly in true smoke conditions that they might find in a real fire. Tubes, furniture, and other items were added as obstacles. Three rooms in the building have burn props and a car and quad prop were added outside.

There is also a landing on the roof that can be used for rope rescue training. There are two outside ladders, one to take firefighters from the ground to the roof platform and the other was a caged OSHA safety ladder. Inside, there is an elevator shaft and a room for confined space training. There are also two overhead chop-outs in the attic for ventilation training.