Oakland Community College—Auburn Hills, Michigan Campus, has reason to be proud of their Combined Regional Emergency Services Training (CREST) facility. This 22-acre site is the only emergency-response training center in the Midwest designed for the combined training of police, fire and emergency medical technicians (EMS) in “real-life” scenarios. OCC is a progressive leader in education with a comprehensive student program in emergency services training. Not only do the students benefit by CREST, active-duty police, firefighters and EMS technicians are also utilizing this facility for all types of disaster response scenarios. This simulated city has been rising in phases under the college’s construction manager, the George W. Auch Company. CREST is a mini-city outfitted with two-lane streets and functioning traffic signals, one and two story residences, and several buildings including a hotel/motel, bank, gas station, convenience store, classroom (school setting) and storage facility.

This is a rear view of the “burn building”. Several structural features were incorporated in the building to create fire scenarios likely to be encountered in real life situations. The tower, five stories tall, meets the rappelling requirements necessary for the High Rise Certification Program.

Using a handheld control, Engineering Technician Don Donachy of Symtron Systems demonstrated to observers how intense smoke could be added to the training exercise. Upon pressing the emergency safety feature, the smoke was evacuated in a matter of seconds.

The most recently completed expansion, however, is the masonry Fire Simulation Technology Facility, which broke ground early in 2003 and was completed in December under the supervision of Auch project manager, Bill Moy. “The design team designed the “burn training simulator” around the technology with the goal of simulating real-life situations fire fighters were likely to encounter,” states William Furtaw, Director of Emergency Services at Oakland Community College—Auburn Hills Campus. “A group of us traveled to look at other fire training facilities in Morris, Bergen, and Paramus counties in New Jersey and Randal Island in New York. Because of the intended function of the building, airflow capacity of the rooms had a lot to do with the design. These rooms can be filled with environmentally safe synthetic smoke that is so thick you can’t see your hand in front of your face.” The design team consisted of William Furtaw (OCC), IDS architect Douglas McFerren, Auch project administrator Steve Baldwin, Oakland Community College Director of Facilities Dan Cherewick, Captain Ron Deadman (Birmingham Fire Dept. and adjunct OCC faculty member) and Fire Chief John Reardon (Commerce Twp. Fire Dept.). “We wanted to design the next generation of building that incorporated all the good stuff.

We listened to the trainers tell us what they would improve and what they would do differently,” states Steve Baldwin. “You are looking at things from a different perspective, training first, building second. What materials can we use? What can we do to make this building hold up when the building is rapidly heated in a matter of seconds, repeatedly? What can we do to make it safe for the trainees and keep their equipment from getting torn up? All these factors were taken into consideration when we designed the structure.” Steve was encouraged to suit up and go into a fire unit for 30 minutes. “I went through some of their training and felt what it was like to be in there. I came away with a whole greater appreciation of what it meant to be a fire fighter.”

According to Integrated Design Solutions architect Douglas McFerren, “The burn building is a unique building type which required the incorporation of specific specialized systems and materials to provide durability for the long term performance and protection of the structure. The building is a concrete, poured-in-place structural frame with concrete masonry walls and a brick exterior veneer. The design incorporates a variety of different building styles and elements into one unified structure to provide flexible, realistic and safe training to emergency service personnel. These varied building types are similar to those that may be encountered in this geographic region and include residential, commercial and industrial elements with a variety of roof, window, balcony, stair and door configurations.” To minimize the resulting thermal shock from the rapid heating by the burn modules and immediate rapid cooling from the water, a system of steel plates was installed approximately 2 inches away from the concrete wall and ceiling surfaces to provide an air gap and absorb the direct flame impingement. PMC Detroit mechanical contractor, The J. B. Cain Company of Royal Oak, Michigan

Standing in front of the Auto Fire Trainer are Field Technician Ernest Cassidy and Engineering Technician Don Donachy of Symtron Systems alongside mechanical contractor Project Foreman Mark Szydlowski and Bruce Ross, President of The J.B. Cain Company.

installed the plumbing and piping for this latest addition to CREST. “This project was out of the norm, not so much in the mechanics of it, but in its purpose,” states Bruce Ross, President of J.B. Cain Company. “The latest expansion includes an automobile, made completely of Cor-ten steel, with gas fuel lines which are ignited and used for the training of firefighters and future firefighters to learn how to handle an automobile fire and rescue. There is also a five story building complete with bedroom, kitchen, living area, loading dock and storage area which have natural gas fuel lines connected to them to create smoke and a simulated fire situation. The plumbing in these buildings is sized a little different than most buildings this size. There are eight-inch floor drains used to evacuate the 250 gallons of water per minute dumped from the 2 inch fire hoses that are used to fight the fires. A 24-inch storm line leads to a retention pond where a dry well pump in the pond can refill trucks and be run up to the top of the hill for reuse. The use of plastic no-hub pipe had to be changed to threaded steel due to the heat of the fires. The fuel lines to the building and the areas outside needed to be sized appropriately for the pressures and volumes needed to create the fire. Welding of some of the smaller lines took a great deal of creativity and skill.”

In the event of an emergency or unsafe condition an emergency stop activated manually or by the computer will extinguish all fires and ventilate heat and smoke from the burn room in a matter of seconds. There are a number of extinguishing agent detection sensors built into burn room modules. Thermal couples as well as water collection systems, will automatically respond as if there was a real fire, will trim back automatically when sensing a presence of extinguishing agent, and refuel if the extinguishing agent is not properly applied.
The computer controls and windows based software allow control of large fires and hot interior temperatures (1100oF at the ceiling and 500oF at the shoulder), as well as difficulty level adjustment, without compromising safety. Type A (material) as well as Type B (petroleum based or grease) fires can be programmed to run in OCC’s burn simulator. A flashover-rollover effect in the living room reminds trainees of the importance of cooling high-temperature ceiling gases. Instructors can manually control the exercise with hand held units near the modules or monitor the fires from the control station.

“The firemen who served on the design team were like kids in a candy store,” according to Steve Baldwin. “It was fun to see how excited they got.” There are many features incorporated in this structure to simulate real-life scenarios. Roof venting simulation, confined space, modular partitions to create endless mazes, and a five story rappelling tower for high rise certification training, are just a few features. On December 10, 2003, a group of five instructors from the OCC Fire Training Degree program officially opened the structure to training by extinguishing several computer and manually controlled fires in “train the trainer” exercises. “We are looking forward to offering this valuable hands-on training as part of our program,” states William Furtaw (OCC). “The trades that made this project possible will be glad in the future when any one of us picks up the phone. We will know that the best have had all the appropriate training needed for whatever type of situation might occur,” states mechanical contractor Bruce Ross.

The T-2000 pendant control and wall unit can ignite the pilot and control flame, smoke, flashover, agent and venting as well as provide emergency stop. Flames can be immediately extinguished, and both heat and smoke are ventilated in a matter of seconds.

Source: FlameThrower, July 2004, Vol. 4 - Issue 2
A publication of the Plumbing and Mechanical Contractors of Detroit
Reprinted with permission.