City opens training center

Marisa O’Neil

Things got really hot on Placentia Avenue Wednesday morning -- 700

degrees hot.

Costa Mesa firefighters cranked up the heat for city officials and

curious onlookers during a dedication ceremony Wednesday for their

new training structure. Fire engineer Jason Pyle demonstrated a

controlled flame in one room as he and the visitors stayed on the

safe side of a steel wall.

Those walls, he explained as he eyed the gages, were heating up to

700 degrees. The air was 500 degrees and the floor a comparatively

cool 350 degrees.

Throw some water on that, and steam turns it into an extreme

sauna.

“It’ll cook you like a lobster,” Pyle said.

And that’s just the kind of thing the new, two-story structure is

designed to prepare firefighters for.

“Fortunately, we don’t have many structure fires in Costa Mesa,”

fire Chief Jim Ellis said. “New firefighters need to be exposed to

the situations they’ll face when one does happen. This is the next

best thing.”

The roughly $400,000 facility was largely funded through a grant

from Rancho Santiago Community College District. Santa Ana College,

in that district, will use the structure in its fire sciences

program.

It was also partially funded by money from Proposition 172, a

half-cent sales tax measure approved by voters in 1993.

The new structure sits at the foot of an existing five-story tower

Costa Mesa firefighters use for training at their Placentia Avenue

station. It’s constructed as an addition, allowing access to the

tower through the new building.

Walls in the bottom floor of the new structure can be moved to

change its configuration, Ellis said. And an exterior balcony

walkway and stairway make it similar to many structures in the city,

Capt. Lenny Goodsir said.

“It could be anything,” he said. “It could be a motel. It could be

a commercial building. We could put signs on it that say ‘Lenny’s

Pool Company’ and we’d know to look for chemicals inside.”

The structure contains machines that pump out Hollywood-style,

nontoxic smoke. Smoke inside can get so intense that you “literally

can’t see your hand in front of your face,” fire prevention

specialist Brenda Emrick said.

Firefighters can also use the structure to practice search and

rescue, Goodsir said. And police officers from Costa Mesa’s SWAT team

will be able to use it to play out hostage-rescue scenarios, police

Lt. Ron Smith said.

Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor said he was grateful for the new

addition to the city’s training arsenal and the “increase in human

life that will be saved because of this.”

* MARISA O’NEIL covers public safety and courts. She may be

reached at (714) 966-4618 or by e-mail at marisa.oneil @latimes.com.