Work Begins on New State Fire Academy in W. Va.

Construction has started on a new state fire academy in Lewis County, West Virginia.

The $6.3 million building, scheduled to be finished in June near the Jackson’s Mill State 4-H Conference Center, will replace the current academy in Morgantown where firefighters have been taught for nearly 50 years.

WVU started planning the new academy in the late 1990s. In 2003, the project received $2 million in state economic development grants.

WVU’s master plan initially called for a 13-building firefighter school, but plans now call for one 26,000-square-foot building. It will have two wings, one for training and a smaller one for classrooms and offices.

The West Virginia University Extension Service runs the academy, which serves the state’s 14,000 firefighters, most of whom are volunteers.

The academy will include a tractor-trailer to be used in fire simulations, where firefighters can practice in nontoxic smoke with breathing equipment and protective clothing. They also can force open doors and windows and chop holes in the roof for ventilation – “and then we slip in another piece of plywood and go back at it again,” Loflin said. “It’s got about a 20-year life.”

The simulator, which is scheduled to arrive by next spring, also can be driven to fire departments that don’t have a way to practice putting out fires.

The academy will use a small airstrip nearby to train firefighters to put out airplane fires as well as train firefighters to drive fire trucks, Loflin said.

He said no decision has been made on what will happen with the Morgantown academy, which is a converted fire station.