Fort Myers firefighters training inside Franklin Park Elementary

The Fort Myers Fire Department is conducting drills at Franklin Park Elementary School before it is set to be demolished, using real hoses and water along with fake smoke.

People who have worked with FMFD for decades say they’ve never been able to train in a real-life scenario inside a Lee County school. Even though the smoke you’re about to see is fake, it provides a realistic simulation of conditions inside a burning building.

“This is a once-in-a-career opportunity for Fort Myers firefighters,” said Todd Poland, FMFD division chief. “I’ve been on the job 20 years, and I’ve never had the chance to train inside the actual school… being able to flow water… we’d never be able to do that in a, you know, real, working school. ‘Cause there’d be children there, and you’d ruin stuff.”

Franklin Park Elementary is offering one last lesson before it gets demolished. The firefighters will fight in from outside to discover the alarm, taking them to the spot where the “fire” is raging. There, they will be met with fake smoke.

“It’s like water-vapor smoke,” Poland said. “Same stuff you’d see at, like, a concert hall or a dance or something like that.”

The firefighters have to find a way to see through the smoke in order to save lives. There is zero visibility within the fake plumes, but an infrared viewing tool shows where each firefighter is in the room. That’s how they find the fire and eliminate it.

Capt. Jason Hawn is one of the firefighters involved in the drills.

“Everything that you saw today… that is exactly the way we would handle it in a building like this,” Hawn said. “Check the control panel, find somebody that knows about the building, and hopefully find it and stop it before it goes any further.”

Firefighters are taught to crawl on the ground when visibility is as low as it is during this training. You can see more obstacles under the smoke that way.

FMFD has a crucial partnership with the School District of Lee County and others.

“This is a great opportunity for Fort Myers firefighters,” Poland said.

And behind that team is another team making this training day possible.

“We have a long-time partnership with the school district, and being able to coordinate with the Fire Department is an amazing opportunity,” said Alesha Watchowski, Owen-Ames-Kimball’s director of operations.

“Five, ten, twenty years from now, they’re going to look back and remember going through Franklin Park,” said Rob Spicker, spokesman for the School District of Lee County.

Those two entities, together combined with the Fort Myers Fire Department, understood Franklin Park Elementary School as an opportunity. It offered the chance for the fire department to train inside a Lee County school with the ability to use hoses, water, and fake smoke.

FMFD responded to the alarm, fought through the fake smoke, found the fire, and eliminated the threat.

The school is scheduled to be demolished as soon as next week. So one of the very last things that Franklin Park ever did will have a positive ripple effect on the community for years to come.