Junction City firefighters will participate in live burn training this fall on a vacant house located on a 22-acre site adjacent to McFarland Road.

According to Fire Chief Terry Johnson they’ve been given permission to do the fire training there. “This is something we don’t get every day and it’ll be a great opportunity for our firefighters to gain some experience.”

Johnson confirmed the site and house are now owned by the Faith Tabernacle Apostolic Church.  “We’re going to do some training on the property and once that’s done they’ll start their construction process. They’re still in their plan design phase. ” There is a long range plan for the church to consolidate their facilities at that location.

Johnson said a certain level of training has to be undertaken before the live burn can be done. “So you’re going to see our firefighters training on the house doing different practicing evolutions. The live burn is where we go in and we use different rooms and set fire in specific rooms and from there we send crews in and they extinguish the fire.” The idea is to allow firefighters in a controlled environment to learn about how fire moves and works in a structure fire.

The day of actual burning is when the entire house will be burned to the ground. Johnson estimated that could occur in the late October – early November time frame. At the time of that live burn McFarland Road near the location will be blocked off to traffic.

The house most recently belonged to  the late Connie Mancinelli, Junction City.

Johnson said developing a live burn is a long process. ” We have to get certain permissions from Kansas Department of Health and Environment and all those folks.”