For the first time the annual Firehouse Expo was held in downtown Nashville. The event was expected to bring at least 10,000 firefighters to the city for a four day conference.
It began Wednesday with live fire training at a close housing development in Murfreesboro. About 300 firefighters were able to practice new safety and rescue techniques while others supervised flames inside old apartment units at the former Franklin Heights housing development on Bridge Avenue.
"The layout is more realistic for us. The fire behavior is much more realistic than a metal burn tower," said Brian Kazmierzak, who traveled from South Bend Indiana to represent the International Society of fire Service Instructors. "So coming here to have an acquired structure, there is no better training we can have than this."
The training included studying how fire and flames work their way through structures, how to rescue a fellow fire fighter who is trapped, and more.
Firefighters with the Murfreesboro Fire Department helped coordinate the sessions - something the Fire Chief Mark Foulks said gave the department a chance to learn new techniques crews can employ locally.
"What it offers us is to take the training that these instructors coming in from outside are doing nd bring that back to our employess in Murfreesboro to make us safer. It takes different ideas," Foulks said. "A lot of it is similar training to what we're already doing, but it's a different take or a different way to do what we're doing now."
The Firehouse Expo will continue through Saturday at Music City Center. The event will return to Nashville in 2017.
