Casper / Natrona County International Airport announced that it will receive a $8,718,750 Supplemental Airport Improvement Program grant from the Federal Aviation Administration to reconstruct its Aircraft Rescue Fire Fighting regional training facility, purchase a new 3,000-gallon ARFF vehicle, and expand the Airport Public Safety Facility to provide dedicated training space.The total project cost is estimated to be $9.3 million.
The current ARFF regional training facility was constructed at the airport in 1995, and the dedicated 1,500-gallon ARFF training vehicle was put into service the same year.
“Both the facility and vehicle are reaching the end of their useful life, so without these funds to purchase a new vehicle and reconstruct the training facility, we would be looking at winding down the operations here,” said Glenn Januska, airport director. “To extend the life of the facility and training vehicle, plus provide much needed training space, will allow the facility to be used many years in the future.”
Commercial service airports are required to have trained ARFF personnel able to respond to an airport emergency, and one of the training requirements is to participate in a “live burn” each year, where the fire fighter extinguishes a simulated aircraft fire. Recently, the training facility in Salt Lake City closed and the facility in Denver has been restricted to local Denver airports.
“What that has done is reduce the available facilities, which has increased the demand for a facility like ours,” Januska said. “Because of this, we will be modifying the facility to allow a larger aircraft mockup, allowing bigger airports to train here. Finally, there are fewer and fewer facilities that use diesel fuel like ours to simulate an aircraft fire, opting for propane gas which doesn’t provide the same level of realism.”
The airport currently conducts training burns eight days per year, and Airport staff also teaches a 40-hour class for new ARFF personnel. The airport has provided training for over 2,400 ARFF personnel representing 80 departments throughout the United States since the current facility was put into operation.
