By Jami McLaughlin
A “topping out” ceremony was held Monday to celebrate the new FTCC-Cumberland County Regional Fire & Rescue Training Center.
The center will provide state-of-the-art training to firefighters and first responders across the region and North Carolina and will include one of the only indoor swift water training centers in the Southeast.
“This facility is the result of a lot of hard work and collaboration from our fire chiefs, state officials and county representatives,’’ said Larry Keen, president of Fayetteville Technical Community College. “The most important part of this training facility is saving the lives of people. This will touch everybody in North Carolina in a lot of different ways.”
The first phase of the center will include a 24,000-square-foot classroom and administration building with offices, apparatus bays and simulation labs, as well as a technical rescue complex with a four-story training tower and a three-story “burn building” with live burning exercise opportunities.
“Currently we don’t have facilities like this. This will give our firefighters all the certifications they need,” said Freddy Johnson, president of the Cumberland County Fire Chiefs Association. “This will be a complete buildout as a regional training center with a burn village and indoor swift water training. It will provide full-service hands-on training for our firefighters, including necessary specialty training.”
State and county officials and others signed their names to a steel beam before it was raised and installed in a building that will anchor the training center, which is on Tom Starling Road.
Officials participating included Thomas Stith III, president of the North Carolina Community College System, state Sen. Kirk deViere, state Rep. John Szoka, N.C. Commissioner of Insurance and state Fire Marshal Mike Causey and Cumberland County Commissioners Glenn Adams, Michael Boose and Jimmy Keefe.
“This is a big day in Cumberland County and a big day for North Carolina,’’ Causey said. “North Carolina does more firefighter certification than any other state or any other agency in the world outside of the Department of Defense. We have 54 different levels of firefighter certifications, and this is going to be a great facility.”
State officials and others repeatedly mentioned the collaboration that has taken place on the project.
“This shows a clear collaboration between our community college system, our county commissioners and our first responders,’’ Stith said. “As I travel across the state of North Carolina, one thing is clear and that’s how our community college system is preparing the workforce for the future and what more important way to do that is to ensure that our first responders have a first-class facility and world-class training.”
The Fire & Rescue Training Center received $20 million in funding over two years in the state budget that passed in November.
“In recent history, sometimes the legislature gets things done and this is one of the things we did get done,’’ Szoka said. “On behalf of the whole legislature, fire protection services is one of the easiest sells as we all understand what fire protections does for families and the state as a whole so it’s our pleasure to fund a large portion of this.”
DeViere also thanked Fayetteville Technical Community College and the county Board of Commissioners.
“Without you, this vision and this dream wouldn’t have come to fruition,’’ deViere said. “We were able to provide some resources at the state level, and I think there is a lot of energy around first responders and firefighters so it is very fitting that this is a regional center that will impact around the state. We are proud to be a part of this.”
Keen called Keefe one of the visionaries for the facility’s inception.
“I think what it shows all of us is working with partnerships matter,’’ Keefe said. “This partnership like so many dreams that we have started with four people around a conference room table with Dr. Keen, myself, Chief Johnson and our County Manager Amy Cannon. We identified the need very quickly as something that not only our county needs, but the state of North Carolina needs.”
“If anyone knows Dr. Keen, he wasn’t going to go halfway on this,’’ Keefe said. “It is all the way or nothing, and this partnership not only helps us out but every single member of this community and every community as they have better-trained firefighters and emergency service personnel.”
Adams, chairman of the county Board of Commissioners, echoed those sentiments.
“It’s an exciting day for Cumberland County. It just shows how when you work in collaboration with others – FTCC, the Fire Chiefs Association and now the state of North Carolina – what great things can happen for the citizens of Cumberland County, this region and North Carolina,” Adams said.
Kristen Hess, principal architect and chief executive officer of HH Architecture in Raleigh, was the lead on the design. Barnhill Contracting Co. is the project’s general contractor.
“When we think about what it means to save lives, the people who are going to train here are our biggest heroes,’’ Hess said. “All of our firefighters and first responders need to be proud of what they do and when they see this facility, they will be proud that they learned and trained here.”
Vander Fire Chief Richard Bradshaw said the center will provide a tremendous training opportunity for those in the community and in surrounding counties.
The fire and rescue center is at least on schedule, if not ahead, officials said.
The next phases of the project to be completed in 2022 include more specialized, situation-specific, hands-on training areas, FTCC officials said. The indoor swift water rescue training center will allow year-round training for water rescues in dangerous water situations and simulate wind, high water, low visibility or darkness. This will be the first in the state and the largest in the Southeast.
Jami McLaughlin covers Spring Lake for CityView TODAY. She can be reached at jmclaughlin@cityviewnc.com.
