WCCC to expand burn building used by thousands of region's firefighters

Firefighters in Southwestern Pennsylvania will have more training options available to them upon the expansion of a burn building at Westmoreland County Community College’s Public Safety Training Center in South Huntingdon.

The center — nestled in between corn fields, the Youghiogheny River and industrial buildings in the rural township — has more than doubled its enrollment in the past decade. The facility trained nearly 7,500 first responders in 2024, compared to about 3,000 10 years ago, said college President Kristin Mallory.

The center has also more than doubled the number of certifications it offers in the past eight years, Mallory said.

The increased facility use has come with a rise in wear and tear, said director Marc Jackson — particularly on one of the center’s burn buildings, a structure where firefighters can be exposed to live, controlled fires for training purposes.

First responders from Westmoreland, Fayette, Somerset, Indiana, Allegheny and Washington counties rely on the burn building for training each year — from first responders to police to EMTs. The facility is open for training almost every day of the year, Jackson said.

“We have massively worn this building out,” he said. “We’ve had to do some significant repairs to it and find new ways to have the building work properly for us.”

An expansion planned for the back of the burn building will allow training center staff to alternate the spaces they use for training on any given day, ideally increasing the longevity of each structure.

Expansion to bolster training options

The expansion also will allow the center to offer more training scenarios to local firefighters.

The first floor will simulate a commercial building, the third an apartment complex and the fourth a penthouse. The second floor will be open concept, Jackson said, allowing training center staff to move the walls and present trainees with new firefighting challenges.

The expansion will also include a flashover training unit, which simulates an intense, smoky fire.

A flashover refers to a rapid burst of flames and smoke that overtake an enclosed space. Firefighters have been dealing with these conditions for decades, Jackson said. But flashovers that once took about a half hour to occur in the 60s or 70s can now take place in just three minutes, he said.

Jackson blamed the change on the increase in plastics and synthetics used in modern homes and buildings.

“Sometimes as fire departments are just arriving on scene, the room is flashing over, where one room is already flashed over and as they’re getting into the conditions, it’s going to flash again,” he said. “Typically, these were firefighters who were getting injured or killed or pushed back out.”

Center gives ‘hands-on experiences’

Of the 300 calls Ligonier Hose Company No. 1 responds to each year, Chief Matt Ferry estimates only a handful of them result in intense firefighting conditions.

“That’s not a lot of chances to get hands-on experiences, but when that one fire call comes, the dangers are the same as the department that runs thousands of calls a year,” said Ferry. “The fire doesn’t care how many times you’ve been in a burning building. That’s why the burn building is so important.”

Ferry, owner of an automotive repair business, went through training at the center in 2017 at age 50 — wanting to give back to his community by serving in the volunteer fire department. At the time, he was the first in the department’s history to earn a Firefighter One certification.

Now, 14 volunteers in the department have that distinction, he said.

“That change didn’t happen because of me,” Ferry said. “It happened because of this facility and the staff that are here making us better.”