About 40 area firefighters spent several hours training at the South Metro Public Safety Training facility in Edina. The facility allows fire departments many opportunities to fight live fires under different circumstances and to practice moving around in dark, smoke-filled rooms. (Submitted photo)

Normally when dozens of firefighters from several departments are working together while extinguishing flames and groping through smoke-filled rooms someone’s home or business is being heavily damaged and there’s little room for a learning curve.

However, about 40 firefighters from six local fire departments recently had the chance Nov. 1 to train together while fighting real fires at the South Metro Public Safety Training Facility in Edina. For three hours, members of the Mound, Long Lake, St. Bonifacius, Wayzata, Watertown and Excelsior Fire Departments fought kitchen and living room fires and found their way through a smoke-filled maze searching for a “victim” in the dark. The six departments are all part of the Lake Region Mutual Aid group that is made up of 12 area fire departments.

Mound Fire Chief Greg Pederson is the 2008 president of the group and came up with the unique training idea. He said that the training was important for a couple of reasons. Pederson said that while his department the number of calls his department is responding to is increasing, the number of fire calls is decreasing. Therefore, this was a good opportunity for new firefighters who haven’t been to many actual fires to have that experience while training.

Pederson also said that the departments are being called to more mutual aid fires each year and this was a chance for some of the departments to work together and learn about how each department handles situations.

He said that he’s heard positive feedback from the training and the group might decide to participate in similar exercises in the future.