A new state-of-the-art training facility has been constructed in Tyne and Wear, which aims to help firefighters rescue casualties from collapsed buildings.
The Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service (TWFRS) has completed construction of a network of modular chambers that are the first of their kind in the entire country.
The training aid sees a number of pods connected by 180ft of concrete pipework, that are then covered in rubble.
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The huge structure simulates the scene of a real-life disaster and snakes through the training yard at the TWFRS Training Centre located at their Headquarters site in Barmston Mere, Washington.
It will be used by the Service’s Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) team, to hone and maintain their specialist skills.
TWFRS Chief Fire Officer, Chris Lowther, said it showed the Service’s investment in firefighter safety and how crews respond to a disaster.
He said: “Our USAR teams are highly skilled and will have responsibility for extracting casualties if we have to respond to a collapsed building.
“This state-of-the-art training aid allows us to simulate that type of disaster and offers realistic training for those specialist crews.
“Investment in this type of facility is vitally important to maintain our skills and ensure the safety of our crews if an incident of this nature does take place.
“But it should also reassure our communities here in Tyne and Wear that some of the most highly trained specialists will respond if they ever need them in a crisis.”
USAR teams will use the network by crawling through the pipes and breaking through slabs of concrete or steel that have been slid into each of the modular chambers.
They will then have to make their way through the 180ft network of piping that has been covered in tonnes of concrete rubble.
The pipework also links in with the existing USAR structures enabling instructors to plan and deliver a wider range of scenarios which will provide for a more challenging experience for technicians.
Voids have also been built within the rubble to ensure the USAR Dog Team can test their capability and respond in a crisis.
Deputy Chief Fire Officer, Peter Heath, added: "Having a facility like this here allows us to have extremely realistic situations, in which we can deploy our teams.
"What sits below the rubble here is a series of chambers that have been designed by the input from these teams and indeed our own staff. We can put concrete blocks in and other obstructions that they're forced to break through, which very realistically simulates the conditions that they would face - if indeed they had to deploy anywhere across the UK.
"There are Urban Search and Rescue facilities at other services, but in terms of this site here, what we have in the existing USAR facility was first class.
"What we've built here is bespoke - there's nothing like this anywhere else in the UK, and what we've done is sought to learn from what others have got and how they've used it, take the best parts and build something that brings that together to create a unique set of circumstances that allow us to train not only our own staff, but other firefighters from across the whole of the UK."
The new facility cost around £200,000 to construct, but the first hand experience it will grant officers and firefighting staff alike will prove to be priceless in years to come.
For further information about the work of Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service please visit their official website, here.
