Buckingham Fire & Rescue, Blue Light Hub, Milton Keynes, UK
The new Blue-Light Hub £14 million fire, police and ambulance campus in Milton Keynes includes a live fire training building designed and built by Crofton Engineering.
The joint facility for Buckinghamshire & Milton Keynes Fire Authority, South Central Ambulance Service and Thames Valley Police, is being built on a three-acre site at Thornbury, West Ashland and is due to open in the autumn.
The three blue-light services will work and train together at the new building, which has been designed to provide state-of the-art facilities. The Hub has also been specifically designed to establish closer relationships with community groups and the public at large.
One of the largest and most up-to-date constructions that Crofton Engineering has recently been involved in, the project has a steel frame building, four-storey high rise training building and live fire smoke house. Features include a Fireblast Raven interior with LPG gas props, a ground floor LPG kitchen fire with flashover and a first-floor bed fire. Those gas fuelled fires provide a challenging scenario with tremendous fires and radiant heat and allow the instructors to stop the fires on the push of a button in case they need to interfere the training session. Fireblast is using a so called 14-Layer-of-Safety technology to meet and exceed the existing standards for live fire training systems.
The comprehensive technical rescue training features include a specialist rope rescue, crane jib and high-level platform and USAR training facilities including breeching and shoring for rescue from collapsed structure scenarios. For ladder pitching practice there are various-sized openings on different floors including the sloping roof. The structure also has rope attachment points, trap doors, a crawl-way and a crane jib simulator.
“This is a leading example of how fire services are designing the latest training buildings to provide a wide range of realistic and challenging scenarios,” says Glen Godfrey, managing director of Crofton Engineering. “The Blue Light Hub offers state-of-the-art facilities for joint training in live fire, USAR and much more.”
Website: www.crofton-eng.co.uk
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81xhJihcaLg
