Inferno on demand: $5.3M Costa Mesa fire training center will host SoCal crews
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Costa Mesa officials celebrated a new, state-of-the-art fire training facility this week. It will help firefighters across the region sharpen their rescue skills in scenarios designed to replicate crises they will likely confront in the line of duty.
Located at Costa Mesa Fire & Rescue Station No. 4 on Placentia Avenue, the $5.3-million training center replaces a previous structure built in 1967 and that was well used by generations of first responders.
While many of the new building’s components remain the same — including a multistory tower with rooms and hallways designed to combust on command — the new site boasts a few new features, including a reclamation station that allows for the capture, filtration and reuse of water.
That’s a pretty big deal, according to Costa Mesa Fire & Rescue Chief Dan Stefano.
“If we didn’t have some kind of reclamation, in some cases, we could be using thousands of gallons of water,” the fire chief said. “The ability to recapture it and reutilize it in the system, that’s the goal.”
In a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday, Stefano joined Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris (D-Irvine), who allocated $2.5 million in the state budget for the facility, and a contingent from the City Council to celebrate what he called “a defining moment” in Costa Mesa Fire & Rescue’s 100-year history.
“This tower serves as a promise, a promise to the community of Costa Mesa, that embodies our past, our present and our future,” Stefano said. “It’s our promise that we will continue to train harder, and be more prepared than ever and provide the highest quality service possible as we move into the future.”
Petrie-Norris, who met with city leaders years earlier to discuss community priorities, recalled public safety being a primary concern. The completion of the center, which broke ground a little more than a year ago, was the realization of a vision, she said Tuesday.
“This training center is going to be a resource, not just for Costa Mesa, but for the entire county,” she said. “This is a regional asset, and I’m really looking forward to this becoming a center of excellence for training across Southern California.”
Not content to let the audience watch from below, Costa Mesa Fire & Rescue Capt. Mike Ruhl led participants on a walk-through of the new site, showing off one of four paneled burn rooms that can be set ablaze with propane and other combustibles.
“It’s designed to reflect heat without a lot of fuel, so our firefighters still feel thermally what they’d feel in a large fire,” he said of one room lined with white, fire-retardant panels.
The building features staircases and multiple rooms that can not only be set on fire, but filled with theatrical smoke to allow first responders to experience low-visibility conditions. Bolted window cutouts bear locks mimicking those that may have to be broken to gain access, while other areas let firefighters practice their rappelling and ladder skills.
Costa Mesa Mayor John Stephens, who climbed to the top of the five-story tower and rang a bell dedicated by Fire Academy graduates in 2021, recognized in his remarks the impact the new project will have on firefighters who provide a crucial service to the community.
“We are committed to making sure they have the highest level of training, because it’s real. When they go into a building like this, if they don’t have the highest level of training, it might be the last building they ever go in,” he said.
“So we are committed to keeping them safe, they take care of us — and that’s how it goes.”
