Training for the Worst: O’Hare’s “Burn Pit” Trains Airport Firefighters

By Larry E. Nazimek 

Whether you fly or maintain a Learjet or a Boeing Business Jet, a Cessna 150 or a B-52, fire, one of the very worst hazards, is an ever-present possibility. It if happens on the ground, however, you want the best-trained firefighters to come to the rescue. So where do they train, and what’s the training like? If they are from Illinois or the surrounding states, they train at the Chicago Fire Department, O’Hare Regional Training Facility “Burn Pit” on the north side of O’Hare International Airport (ORD).

CFD Lt. Leonard Edling is an FAA Live Fire Training Specialist. The FAA takes firefighting very seriously, so they mandate minimum requirements for the training of airport firefighters, including the certification of those who conduct this important training.

The training begins indoors, with classroom training. Indoor training includes a section of an airliner entryway, so that firefighters will know how to open the hatch, enter and rescue those inside without hesitation, even in conditions of smoke and flames.

This building also has a simulator of a Striker, the chartreuse vehicle used for airport fires. Both the Striker and the sim are made by the Oshkosh Corp. There are several screens so that the operators, a driver and turret operator, get the view, not only looking forward, but also looking to the sides, of what they would see if they were responding to an actual aircraft fire.

Edling demonstrated this by driving to the fire, positioning the Striker by the burning engine, and utilizing the nose turret (attached to the vehicle directly below the windshield) and the upper high-reach extendable turret to fight the fire. In addition to the nozzle, the nose turret has a light for operations in darkness, and a forward-looking infrared camera that provides a display on the Striker’s console. This FLIR is especially helpful in conditions where smoke obscures the operator’s vision and in cases where an internal fire must be located from the outside by detecting the hottest spots. To make things even more realistic, sirens and all the other sounds are heard, and the driver makes the radio calls that would be made in an actual fire.

There are three simulators outdoors, built to resemble aircraft. One might expect that contaminated fuel is used for these fires, but that would cause pollution, so propane is used throughout the facility. In addition, propane is easier to control in regard to location, intensity, and duration. Furthermore, instead of using expensive firefighting foam to put out these fires, water is used exclusively to simulate the foam. Prior to igniting any fires on these simulators, the instructor notifies O’Hare’s control tower to preclude controllers from sending out firefighters on an emergency call.

The Small Frame Aircraft Trainer (SFAT) has under wing “engines” and one in the tail, similar to that of a DC-10. Engine fires and wheel fires, simulating hot brakes or burning rubber are operated from a control room. Firefighters must know how to open the various engine access panels and puncture sides of the engine pods to get to the fire. Piercings are not only done with tools such as the SPAAT (skin penetrator agent application tool) device, but also from the Striker, where the high-reach extendable turret has a piercing nozzle, a type of pike that closely resembles a large pitot tube of a military fighter.

This SFAT also trains firefighters on putting out cabin fires and rescuing mannequins the size and weight of actual passengers. Fires may come from behind the pilots’ instrument panel, lavatory, galley, and overhead baggage compartments, all controlled by the instructor with a hand-held device. In an effort to save as many occupants as possible, the dummies are carried out onto the wing, where others may then get them safely to the ground.

The Large Frame Aircraft Trainer, a recent addition to the facility, is a cross between a Boeing 747 and an Airbus. As is the case with the SFAT, an engine fire is simulated, as are interior fires from all possible locations. Similar to large aircraft, the LFAT has upper, lower, and cargo decks. Various ladders and actual aircraft stairways are used to gain access to the various aircraft doors.

There are panels where the piercing nozzle of the Striker’s extendable turret will pierce the fuselage as well as the aircraft windows. In actual aircraft, windows are easily pushed in with the device and not actually punctured. After the panels (carbon fiber or aluminum in a frame) have been punctured to the point where they can no longer be used for training, they are replaced.

Aircraft fires may occur on planes that run off a runway or have a collapsed (or non-extended) landing gear, so to simulate non-level situations, a section of the interior seating can be tilted 10 degrees with 18 inches of tilt.

The Fuel Spill Trainer is a mockup in the center of a shallow “pool” of water, for safety, with numerous propane burners, each in a section that is seen on a screen in the control room. The instructor controls which section will burn. He can, for example, simulate a fire that begins by one engine and then spreads around the front of the airplane. Fuel fires must be smothered with foam. Although water is used for this training, sensors in the ground are made to sense the effect on the fire if the water were foam. When the sensors determine that the fire has been smothered in a particular sector, the fire in that sector is ceased and that sector on the instructor’s screen changes from red to green. If, however, the sensors detect that the temperature is too high, the fire will reignite.

Once the fire has been successfully put out in all sectors, the operation is reviewed in the debrief.

This simulator is used for both hose teams of firefighters as well as the ARFF Apparatus. I got to ride in one while a turret operator completed his requirement to fight fires with the extendable turret. It looked exactly like what is seen in the indoor simulator.

Hopefully, we will never have to depend on the skills of these firefighters, but if we do, we can have complete confidence in their abilities.