Stop 28 – Training to Fight Fires

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As equipment became more advanced, firefighters needed more training. First aid became part of the job in the early nineteen-thirties. In nineteen thirty-seven, an annual State Fire School began, and it's still held every May in Grand Island.

In nineteen thirty-four, the International Fire Service Training Association was formed to write training manuals for firefighters, and they're still updated as new techniques and hazards come along.

The department probably held informal drills as far back as eighteen sixty-eight, mostly taking the equipment out and making sure it worked. After World War Two, training became regular. Before the war, property was too valuable to burn on purpose. But after it, everyone wanted everything new, and giving an old house to the fire department for a practice burn was a good way to get rid of it.

As real fires became less frequent, those practice burns became even more important. Crews learned to go inside a building to find and fight the fire, which is riskier but can save lives and property. The photos at the bottom show a training burn in December of two thousand five, on the future site of this very museum.