FL Fire Department to Build $1.9M Training Tower

Aug. 2, 2019

The modular, four-story, state-of-the-art facility for Palm Beach Gardens Fire Rescue will be the only one of its kind in the county and should be complete by next spring.

By Jodie Wagner

Source The Palm Beach Post, Fla.

The Palm Beach Gardens, FL, city council approved a four-story, metal fire rescue training tower on property leased from Seacoast Utility Authority.

PALM BEACH GARDENS, FL—A four-story, metal tower that will serve as a training site for fire rescue personnel was approved for the city's public safety training complex Thursday night.

The city council voted unanimously to award a $1.4 million contract to Overland Park, Kansas-based Jahnke & Sons Construction, Inc., to build the modular structure on Seacoast Utility Authority property on Richard Road.

The tower will be used by fire rescue staff to conduct training exercises on the suppression of different classes of fires, victim location and extraction, and other search and rescue techniques, according to the city.

Personnel also will create realistic smoke and practice different environmental scenarios and events, fire truck operations, rappelling, rope rescue and confined space rescue.

"This state-of-the-art facility will allow members of the department to experience realistic conditions in a controlled environment for low-frequency, high-risk call types," said Andrew Lezza, Division Chief of Training and Safety for Palm Beach Gardens Fire Rescue.

The tower will feature movable walls for search and rescue training, an elevator shaft for confined space rescue training, a smoke distribution system, rappelling anchors and a sloped roof that allows personnel to practice cutting ventilation holes.

"We'll give them a real-life fire experience at our own facility without relying on anybody else," Lezza said. "We'll be able to do it in-house."

The planned structure is the only modular fire training tower constructed of metal in Palm Beach County, according to the city, and will be made available to other local agencies to train their firefighting staff.

It will be paid for out of the city's Fire Rescue Department Capital Improvements budget.

Construction will begin once the contractor completes the design, drawings and permitting process, according to the city. The project is expected to be complete by next spring.

"Once again, Palm Beach Gardens is setting the bar higher for the safety of our residents," Vice Mayor Rachelle Litt said. "This new fire tower in conjunction with the police tactical training center really does put our city in a league of its own, statewide and perhaps nationally with respect to our size."

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