New Lavonia Firefighter Training Center Completed, Open House Scheduled

After months of work, the new firefighter training center in Lavonia is completed.

The training center is located off SR17 behind the American Legion Post building.

At the Lavonia City Council meeting Monday evening, Lavonia Fire Chief Scott O’Barr said an open house is scheduled for next month.

“We’re going to hold our open house, which will be open to the public as well as all fire safety personnel on Sunday, March 20 from 2:30p to 4:30p. If you haven’t been by to see it, it is in my personal opinion, extremely impressive,” O’Barr said.

The training center consists of three cargo containers stacked one on top of the other.

Those boxes are fitted inside so firefighters could simulate house fires for training.

There is also a giant water tank and pump underground so firefighters can do pump tests on the fire engines.

O’Barr said the new training facility will allow firefighters to get their required hours of annual training in without having to travel to the State training center in Forsyth, Georgia.

“By having it here we will get a lot more of our firemen better training and more consistent training,” he said. “It’s always better when you can train as a whole group of people versus sending three or four people to get a certain training. When everybody is trained in the same manner and at the same caliber, large scenes such as large house fires, bad accidents and certain kinds of rescues go a lot smoother when everybody has the same training and knows what everyone is capable of.”

O’Barr said the Lavonia Fire Department will be allowing other fire departments in the area to use the facility for training but under certain conditions.

“With myself and assistant fire chief Shane Bentley being State certified instructors we have to be very careful not lose our certification as instructors if we let somebody come in and do something wrong. I’ve given Charles (Cawthon) a 15-20 page document on our guidelines, rules and regulations. It’s going to be managed extremely strict,” O’Barr said.

O’Barr said however, there will be no charge to other fire department to use the training center.

Again the open house takes place Sunday, March 20th at 2:30p.