Crofton Engineering’s Training Building division successfully handed over and delivered the operations training facility at St John’s Park in Huntingdon for Cambridgeshire Fire and rescue services.

The three-acre development consists of a fire station and its related support areas including overnight accommodation, lecture rooms, changing facilities and offices for support staff. The training area, purpose-built and installed by Crofton Engineering, allows CFRS to create realistic training exercises including live fire training containers, incidents involving water and motor vehicles, and a four-storey training tower.

The main training building (MTB) is 12m x 12m and includes facilities to simulate cold smoke and LPG Fires. It is a compartment building which contains everything you would find in a residential or commercial building, including stairs, rooms, hallways, corridors and garages. It allows for a multitude of applicable training scenarios. Cold Smoke is available in all rooms and on all floors and there is also facility to control the smoke in each room independently. Crofton Engineering and Fireblast GmbH designed the gas fuelled live fire training system in accordance with DIN 14097 Part 2 and NFPA 1402 standard. Fireblast GmbH uses the latest state-of-the-art design to provide challenging scenarios to allow tactical training under realistic conditions.

It is equipped with three computer-controlled gas fuelled fires and prepared for additional fires in the future. In the ground floor garage, there is a large fire pit. With different rooms and entrances, the long corridor can be used for a dual hallway flashover simulation to practise door opening and attack procedures. On the second floor, a multi-prop fire provide can be used for a bedroom, living room or small kitchen by changing the elements placed on the multi-prop platform.