TWIN FALLS, Idaho — The Twin Falls Fire Department will open its first regional training facility this summer.
This facility will give training access to the many fire departments in the magic valley and keep training between the stations local. The facility will also keep engines and other parts of the Magic Valley fire departments apparatus to stay local and minimize wear and tear.
The first portion of the facility will open this June.
Josh Kliegl has worked with the Twin Falls Fire Department for over 20 years and is excited for the new training facility.
"This is a huge step for the magic valley. It’s something that we have needed for a long time,” said Kliegl.
Kliegl works as the training officer for the Twin Falls Fire department and says prior to having this facility, all local trainings were conducted at local schools or buildings scheduled to be torn down.
“Before we had to go and secure structures that were going to be torn down. We had to put money into those structures, and we were able to get one training day out of that. We had to go out and utilize the surrounding middle school and high schools in the town here,” said Kliegl.
Now local departments will have access to all the required training's that they need, including EMS.
“The EMS portion of this facility is going to be huge as far as working with our neighboring departments and with the magic valley paramedics that we work very closely with,” said Kliegl.
The largest benefit to having a local training facility is the communication with the other fire departments becomes stronger, according to Kliegl.
“The old adage that we practice like we play," he said. "The more we can do that, the communication becomes easier. We all try to stay to a national standard as far as the communication, but we lose some of that if we don’t train with some of our neighboring departments."
The Twin Falls Fire department has a 20 year plan in place for the training facility in order to expand and grow to fit the Magic Valley's needs.
