TRU Residential Construction students along with instructors Hank Bangma, Peter Poescheck and Dean Ralph Finch, Kamloops Fire And Resuce Chief Training Officer Steve Butchart and Kamloops firefighters.
Whether you’re training firefighters or carpenters, real life scenarios are the lessons that stick with learners throughout their careers. Thompson Rivers University Residential Construction students spent the last three weeks completing their commercial formwork unit, and in doing so, the Kamloops Fire and Rescue have been able to sign-off on phase one of a four-phase expansion to its McGill Road training house.
For Ralph Finch, TRU’s dean of trades and technology, the opportunity to partner training the carpentry students with the Kamloops Fire and Rescue expansion plans was a benefit for everyone involved.
“This has been a perfect project for us to be involved in,” said Finch.
“The Fire Department needs help in expanding it’s training facilities, our students need to experience building a large, commercial concrete structure “it’s a project that just doesn’t come along everyday.”
Those criteria limit the opportunities for commercial formwork projects for the students to work on. “Usually we simulate a large project in the yard. The student’s work is graded by how they have built the forms, how they tie the rebar and fasteners,” said Hank Bangma, TRU construction trades instructor. “This time we were able to use real concrete for a large pour. There’s no better marker than real concrete.”
Getting the TRU’s carpentry program on board with the 48″ x 32″, two-storey expansion of the fire training house was painless, according to Steve Butchart, Chief Training Officer for the KFRD. “We had one initial meeting last February, a few phone calls “and now phase one is done.”
“It’s real life training for real life,” said Peter Poeschek, another TRU construction trades instructor involved in the project. “Our students only spend 8 weeks out of 30 learning theory in a classroom.”
Additional phases of the training structure will be completed by subsequent carpentry classes, ensuring the training wealth of this scarce commercial concrete pour is shared through several cohorts.
Next construction steps will involve pouring slab floors and adding more storeys, to replicate a small apartment complex. KFRD will install stairs and a water standpipe for the hose and crews will simulate rescue from apartment fires.
Carpentry students and firefighters will meet again on Dec. 16, because one good turn deserves another. The trades students will exchange their overalls and tool belts for firefighting turnout gear, and Butchard and Kamloops’ other fire training officers will give the students some insight into firefighting. They see first hand how the KFRD start a fire in the training house then practice fire fighting and rescue.
From the fire training house, Bangma, Poeschek and the students head back to Sun Rivers and the TRU/Canadian Home Builder’s Association ” Central Interior Training House “better known as the Y Dream home. This award winning collaboration has been giving students the opportunity to build a real home for the last nine years.
Contact: Hank Bangma, Construction Trades Instructor, (p)250.371.5663
