Firefighters can use the undersized structures for an up-close look at smoke flow and fire behavior to better prepare them to save both others and themselves when responding to a fire.

Several full-time members of the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center fire department, themselves also volunteers for local fire departments, cooked up the idea of creating the tiny houses.

The firefighters built the structures in their spare time using plywood donated by the Builders FirstSource Alpena store.

Hands-on access to fire and smoke behavior – without having to burn an actual building – will help departments arrive at a structure fire prepared to respond safely and act quickly, said CRTC Fire Chief Jeremy Wohlford.

News Photo by Julie Riddle At the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center on Thursday, firefighters demonstrate the use of small houses built for smoke-flow training.

A handful of firefighters built the small houses following plans developed by firefighter resource organization Stop Believing Start Knowing.

The training prop design includes sliding panels that allow firefighters to control the flow of smoke through the structure, simulating what happens when they break a window or knock a hole in a wall or roof of a burning home.

Training with the small houses provides practice with ventilation strategies, thermal imaging, and smoke-reading, said Nathan Seelye, Maple Ridge Fire Department volunteer and full-time CRTC firefighter.

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The 12 houses built by the CRTC firefighters in their free time will help train 191 firefighters in Alpena County, Seelye has calculated.

News Photo by Julie Riddle At the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center on Thursday, firefighters demonstrate the use of small houses built for smoke-flow training.

Those firefighters impact every resident in the county, said Mark Thomson, sales rep for Builders FirstSource, saying offering materials for the training houses was “an easy yes.”

When firefighters crawl into an active house fire, “Everything above us is flammable” – including the smoke, Seelye said. With the help of the small houses, trainees can use thermal imaging cameras to study heat movement, including the swift and intense heat increase in a burning space even moments after the fire starts.

During a demonstration at the CRTC on Thursday morning, smoke spewed from openings of a training house, changing rapidly as firefighters adjusted vents, added a new kind of fuel, or sprayed the flames with water.

Density, speed, volume, and even color of smoke offers responders clues to what’s happening inside a burning building, like the puffy, brown smoke that signals a fire has consumed all available oxygen and may explode into life if someone opens a door or window, Wohlford said.

The little houses built by firefighters in their time off will help make sure those who respond to fires can read such smoke and know the signs that could help them make it home safely, Seelye said.

Firefighters regularly get involved in helping their communities outside of their jobs, Wohlford said.

“But something in our own career field, to support all our brothers and sisters out there, I think is pretty awesome,” he said.

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693 or jriddle@thealpenanews.com. Follow her on Twitter @jriddleX.