FORT WAYNE – The journalist entered a door in the rear of the burning strip mall, made his way carefully through a small office and storage area, and used a hook to pull down layers of suspended ceiling, thus exposing a fire that seemed to be rolling through the void space between the ceiling and the roof.

Luckily for the occupants and owner of the strip mall (not to mention, the integrity of firefighting), the journalist was only pretending to be a fireman thanks to a realistic computer simulation at the Public Safety Academy of Northeast Indiana.

The Fort Wayne Fire Department conducted an open house Saturday to tout the Command Training Center, where future officers and experienced officers in fire departments across Indiana can receive Blue Card Command Certification.

This certification program was developed by officers in the Phoenix Fire Department to help streamline and standardize the way in which officers respond to various incidents and increase the efficiency of such responses.

Thanks to grants from Indiana Homeland Security Department and the Metropolitan Medical Response System of Fort Wayne, the training at the Northeast Indiana Command Training Center is free to Indiana firefighters, according to Fort Wayne Assistant Fire Chief Michael Miller.

John Buckman, German Township fire chief in Evansville and Indiana Department of Homeland Security fire training director, likened the training to the many hours that an Air Force pilot spends in a flight simulator before he is allowed to fly a plane.

“How do you improve an officer’s experience before that (actual incident)?” he said. “Because, if you fail then, the consequences can be catastrophic.”

Some of the most exciting and innovative training at Northeast Indiana Command Training Center happens in a roomful of cubicles where true-to-life firefighting scenarios unfold on numerous computer screens.

Each cubicle is equipped with a radio headset and all the headsets are linked with one another and with the control room a few doors down the hall.

The control room is where the simulations are managed and where an ersatz or student dispatcher dispatches appropriate personnel to the virtual scene.

Poor choices can be made by the officers who are going through these scenarios, Miller said, and a few of these mistakes – if severe enough – will halt the simulation.

The video scenarios are all based on businesses and buildings in Phoenix, Miller said, but it won’t be long before fictional incidents in Fort Wayne structures unfold as part of the training.

Buckman said the simulations can be modified to reflect personnel numbers, drive times and inventories of equipment in any city.

Officers from Albion, Rome City, Ligonier, Geneva and Toledo were in attendance at the open house, Miller said.

Officers and future officers from Auburn and Angola have already gone through or are just about to go through the training, he said.

spen@jg.net