The Town of Colonie’s Fire Services and Police departments will soon have their very own miniature village to run fire drills and hostage situation training.
The Town Board unanimously passed a resolution on Thursday, May 12, to send out a bid on contracts to move two houses donated by Peter Campito, owner of Campito Plumbing and heating Ltd., to a spot at 327 Old Niskayuna Road.
Pete Lattanzio, Colonie’s fire services chief, said while the town has a fire tower on Wade Road that they use for training, this would provide a much more realistic training experience for firefighters.
The houses will be fully furnished to the extent that the cupboards will be filled with dishes, there will be clothes, children’s toys and other things on the floor that would create the environment of a real home.
This gives us the ability to train in a life-like scenario, he said. `Usually where we train is, in a sense, sterilized because there is nothing there except a little furniture.`
This is coming as no expense to the town, Lattanzio said, as everything has been donated, including the prospective cost of moving the structures to the training facility. The town also received grants in the form of $125,000 donated by Assemblyman Bob Reilly, D-Colonie, and Assemblyman Jack McEneny, D-Albany, and a $50,000 grant from Albany County District Attorney David Soares.
The houses will not be burned, Lattanzio said, but a smoke machine will be used, as well as masks that will provide little visibility for the firefighters to run different scenarios around the house. He added that there would be Lexan plastic panels placed on the house where blood splatters will be on them. This, of course, would be painted on, but would simulate someone being knifed in a room, hit with a hammer or hit with an ax. There will be some costs, however, to replace some items.
A video system will be installed as well so the department will not have to fit 30 other people in the room to observe. This would allow them to watch from a monitor in another room or in a classroom building, Lattanzio said.
Electricity will also be installed but there will be no heating or running water for either of the houses. Lattanzio said the department will be working with solar companies involved to donate solar panels so the firefighters can become familiar with new technologies and experience the pitfalls of them.
Lattanzio said they are also looking to have a sprinkler system installed, which would be donated by a local company, and also CDTA will be donating a bus. Telephone poles and a catch basin will also be added to the facility, allowing the department to create different situations such as evidence being thrown down a storm drain or an automobile accident.
`We’re putting in a four way intersection so we can do an accident investigation course,` he said. `We can simulate an accident in the intersection for them. That way we can do the class and not have to worry about the ongoing environment where traffic goes through. It makes for a safer environment.`
The houses are currently being used by the police department’s Special Services Team and SWAT teams in Troy and Schenectady along with some of the fire departments. Colonie Police Chief Steve Heider called the effort of constructing this facility an impressive one, and said it will be set up as a streetscape environment.
`It’s rare when we get to train under real circumstances meaning real houses, with real basements that have real second floors,` he said. `We need that real training.`
Heider said in the past that they have used several buildings before to achieve the proper training, but now the town has two houses to themselves. It is a different than an antique building, he said, as opposed to a home with the real obstacles a family residence generally has to trip over.
The police department will have to build into its budget how to replace the items, Heider said, and he admitted the more it is used things will be broken. Still, he said this will be a huge benefit for public safety departments, as this facility will be opened up to the Capital District, as well as the state.
Supervisor Paula Mahan said this will be used as a revenue generator for the town as the Albany County District Attorney’s office will be able to send its people there for training.
`The goal for this is it to become a premier training facility that we can invite people from other parts of the state and other parts of the nation to come and use this facility for training,` she said. `Through that we can generate revenue. But it does provide excellent training for our staff and our own volunteers, which is our first priority.`
Lattanzio said he is looking to make a facility an all inclusive one where the fire department, EMS, code enforcement and the police department can use it for training.
This sort of facility would be unique to Upstate New York, Lattanzio said, and to his knowledge, in the state. There is still a vacant corner where he said he would like to put up something that is a commercial building for a warehouse scenario so he could make sure all the bases are covered. Because the main mission of having this facility is to ensure both firefighters and police officers are well-prepared.
`We want to make sure everyone who walks out the door in the morning comes home in the afternoon,` he said.“