Car fire training is an important part of being a professional Firefighter/EMT. There are many hazards associated with fires involving vehicles, and with the advances in technology today, it is necessary for our members to be prepared to deal with those ever-evolving hazards.

It is also convenient for us to do car fire training, extrication training, and trauma scenarios involving vehicle accidents because we have many vehicles donated to us throughout the year. When a vehicle is donated to the department, a letter is provided to the owner for tax credit purposes.

In this scenario, a vehicle was selected and certain hazards were removed or disabled for training safety. The vehicle, in this case a Land Rover SUV, was then packed with straw and broken pallets as fuel for the fire. Flares are applied to the wood and straw to ignite the fire, and no other accelerants are used. We were able to use the SUV for several training rotations, allowing many different firefighters to take turns extinguishing the fire, popping the hood or hatch, and breaking the windows to gain experience.

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Wagon 10 pulling into the training lot at station 10 for car fire training.