BLAINE, Minn. – (Jan. 23, 2015) – Driving can sometimes be an adventure. Now imagine instead of driving a 3,500 pound car you are guiding a 65,000 pound fire truck down a busy road trying to get to an emergency as quickly and safely as possible. At the Spring Lake Park – Blaine – Mounds View Fire Department they have a unique, high tech way to train their officers for a variety of possible on the road scenarios. “The simulator we use to try to bring reality to our firefighter before putting them out in the real world” said Lieutenant Chad Martin of the SBM Fire Department.
A decade ago the department invested in a driving simulator a training tool that no one else was using. SBM Training Chief Ken Martin gave the credit to the Fire Chief Nyle Zikmund, “our Chief is a visionary.”
Chad designs the scenarios using real life experiences he has had during his fire career and the firefighters never know what he is going to come up with when they sit down in the simulator. “I can make it icy, snowy, raining, dark, sun glare – I can do all those different things” said Chad Martin.
The simulator doesn’t replace on the road training but it is another tool for the officers and has benefits that transfer to real world situations. “The simulator really makes you mentally prepared for those things.”
New recruits have to show proficiency in both the simulator and on the road training before they are allowed to respond to actual fire calls. The simulator is also part of the on going training regimen for all firefighters. “For our firefighters they have to do it twice a year…for our all our chiefs…they have to do it another two times a year.”
The simulator is a highly useful tool that helps protect the public and the firefighters. “We are very proud of the fact we get to have something that very few people have” said Chad Martin. And the statistics show that the simulator is making a difference, “as far as our accident rates for comparable departments we are two-thirds lower.”
