Throughout the month of June, crews with the North Metro Fire Rescue District have been training for large area rescue missions.

The district’s staff at seven stations in Broomfield and Northglenn have rotated training at the 1stBANK Center in Broomfield.

It’s been a few years since the district has had large area rescue mission training, and the goal is to make it an annual event, said Stacey Mulligan, public information officer with NMFR.

“What we were trying to do with the crews is build on their skill sets with large-area commercial searches,” she said. “Because we have so many commercial buildings and big box stores, we want to make sure we do this annually.

Mulligan said this training isn’t just important in case of fires at these large venues, but also in the event of a roof collapse.

“It’s not like these things happen often, but it is such a high-risk situation that we want to make sure we are protecting property and the lives involved,” she said.

“The training allowed our firefighters to implement previously introduced, large area search techniques in a controlled environment,” said NMFR Capt. Paul Nelson. “It proved to be an extremely valuable experience for all those involved.”

The facility was blacked out with all lights off, and they used dummies as victims to search and find.

“For me the training reinforced that ultimate respect should be given to these types of buildings,” Nelson said. “Due to several factors: size, fire loading, and layout, large commercial structures can be potentially dangerous to firefighters conducting fire suppression activities in them. Strong decision-making and firefighter accountability are paramount to successful and safe incident operations in large commercial structures.”