Empty Car Dealership Becomes Training Ground for Firefighters - FOX 42: Omaha News, Sports and Weather; kptm.com |

Leah Uko

OMAHA (KPTM) – A car dealership moved out and firefighters moved in to use the building for training before it gets torn down.

As the saying goes: "One person's trash, becomes another's treasure."

Or: "There's nothing like the real thing."

Sunday afternoon that trash was an old car dealership.

The treasure—or the "real thing" was a training session on the rooftop for Omaha firefighters.

"Any chance we get to train on an actual real building like this and cut real holes is just experience we can't get anywhere else," said Omaha Fire Department Captain Jeff Sparr.

Sunday was the fire crew's last chance to get what they called, "real world" training at a vacant Lexus car dealership in west Omaha.

Monday, they said, developers will tear it down. But before that happens, the crew tore down parts of the roof they would need out of the way if putting out a real fire.

"We're able to take our time and really learn what we're doing a little better than we can like in the middle of the dark night when we can't see everything and we have fire burning and smoke," said Sparr.

Now that they cut through the ceiling, firefighters feel there's more of a chance they'll know exactly what to do if there is a real fire in a building similar to the one they've been training in for the past few days.

"We now know what saw to use, how easy it would be to get through to the actual structural members of the roof to put a hole in it," said firefighter Drew Gerken.

And although OFD has their own training facility, firefighters still took this chance to practice on a real building.

"Until you can get on an actual true property, you can't really get the full gist of what's going on," said Gerken.

So they are prepared for a real fire.

For them—that's the "real thing".