TUPELO, Miss. (WTVA) — With the help of the old Cowboy Maloney's building in Tupelo, firefighters are able to train for rescuing people and themselves.
The training is dangerous and challenging due to the elements but is necessary for a number of reasons.
"This is one of the situations you never want to encounter, but if it does, you want to be ready," said Capt. Andrew Hooper, "especially when we're going in to rescue one of our own."
With the help of an instrument such as a Personal Alert Safety System, Tupelo firefighters are practicing advanced realistic training where they enter a dark building and have to rescue civilians and their own fellow firefighters.
"Opportunities like this give us to do more realistic training for the guys who can go in unknown environments," said fire training officer Romeco Traylor.
"This right here gives us more of a real life scenario of what we will actually encounter during a firefighter rescue," added Hooper.
For the firefighters who risk their lives when responding to emergency calls, one of the reasons why they say this type of training is so vital is because of the bond that the firefighters have among themsleves.
"When it comes to our brothers who we spend a third of our life with, we put our trust in each other," added Hooper. "It is a very strong bond. A lot of times we're with these guys. We're with each other more than we are with our own families."
Each time the alarm sounds and the firefighters put their lives at risk, the dangers are real no matter how small or how large the fire is.
"You can always have a possibility of rescuing victims or a down firefighter whenever you have a house fire," said Traylor. "It just doesn't have to be a structure collapse. It can happen in any situation that we have when firefighters enter an unknown structure."
Firefighters from all seven city fire stations are going through the training.
