Auburn approves new public safety training tower

AUBURN, Ala. (WTVM) - A new training facility for Auburn firefighters and police officers will be hard to miss once constructed. It will have multiple stories and provide critical training for local emergency workers.

Auburn City council members approved a contract with WHP training towers to design and build a multi-story training tower located off U.S Highway 280, only ten minutes from the Public Safety Building on Ross Street.

The 350,000-dollar tower will be the first of several large-scale components at the Public Safety training center. The project will provide local law enforcement and firefighters with multiple training options.

“The purpose of this center is to provide facilities and a venue for both police and fire to have training structures that we will be able to use, you know, on a daily and weekly basis for general in-service training and also for training recruits and applicants for police and fire service,” said Deputy director of public safety, Will Matthews.

Matthews said some of the components of the training center would include a multipurpose building that houses a more extensive classroom for training courses and props, a burn building, and a drafting pit. He says the first phase will be the 6-story training tower.

“We will be able to use for firefighters running stairs with the hoses and all their gear for repelling for high-angle rescue,” he said.

Matthews said agility course would also be a significant component for the police officers.

“Police recruits will be able to come in and do the car push, run the track, go over the fence on the wall and all the typical physical agility course requirements,” said Matthews.

Matthews says having all of the amenities within the public safety training center will help sharpen those skills firefighters and police officers need when they are called for an emergency. He said you would see different phases of each part of the training center being built over the next few years.

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