The International Fire Training Centre at Durham Tees Valley Airport has been delivering fire training to the aviation, offshore, petrochemical and maritime sectors around the world for more than 50 years. Joe Willis braves the flames.

LEGEND has it that a woman was once driving past Durham Tees Valley Airport when she saw an aircraft on fire. Believing she had just witnessed the aftermath of a catastrophe, she did what many of us might do in that situation. She pulled up at the first pub she came across and demanded the bartender pour her a stiff drink.

Of course, what the motorist had really seen was not a horrific air disaster but an exercise at the International Fire Training Centre (IFTC), which is based at the airport.

The centre’s instructors have been starting fires and asking trainees to put them out for the past 28 years, and last year alone, 7,000 people travelled from across the UK and abroad to learn firefighting skills at the IFTC.

As well as training all of the country’s airport fire crews, the centre works with firefighters based on oilrigs, cruise liners and industrial sites, including chemical works on Teesside.

Former military firefighter, now the training centre’s business development manager, Tim Oakes showed me round.

The “burning ground”, as the training area is known, is tucked away from the terminal, at the far side of the runway, in a corner of the airfield. The area is dominated by the front end of a huge mock Airbussized aeroplane, installed at large expense two years ago.

Surrounding this prop are a host of grounded aircraft – some real, some fake – ranging from a helicopter, to a small civilian propeller plan, to a fighter jet, to the rear of a 767-sized aeroplane.

The centre is understandably reluctant to reveal the planes’ real origins.

In fact, British Airways was so touchy about the issue that they sent a man armed with a paint pot and brush to cover up the company’s logo on its former jets.

Also on the site is a large, charred steel structure – complete with helideck – used for the oil rig training.

Alongside this is a building that can be filled full of smoke, which is made of what looks like shipping containers.

For many of the trainees who attend the centre firefighting is secondary to their full-time job and they will only be called into action when an emergency actually occurs.

Considering this and the possible scenarios they might face, it is safe to assume they feel more than the weary indifference most of us exhibit when the fire alarm goes off at work.

The first of four exercises sees staff from a well-known multi-national petroleum company test their skills using breathing apparatus.

The shipping containers are pumped full of fake smoke and the trainees are sent in to have a poke around.

After half an hour, they emerge blinking into the sunlight just as their alarms sound to signal that they are running low on air.

The second exercise is far more dramatic.

A group of offshore workers are refreshing their firefighting certificates by tackling “running, pressurised and spill” fuel fires on the rig.

As the heat from the burning kerosene becomes almost unbearable and the flames lick the roof, you might assume the exercise has gone horribly wrong. But if it has, nobody tells the trainees and they carry on regardless, clutching the hose for dear life and edging slowly closer to dowse the fire with foam and powder.

After a few minutes, the fire is out and the firefighters visibly relax, looking suitably pleased with themselves.

Across the burning ground, airport fire crews are tackling the aftermath of a mock civilian aeroplane and helicopter crash. It’s all go in the Tees Valley today.

Some of the trainees arrive – sirens blaring and blue lights flashing – on fire engines. After the lucky firefighters tasked with firing the roof-mounted water cannon have given the two craft a good blast, crews on the ground move in to finish the job. One trainee gets a good soaking when a colleague aims the hose in the wrong direction, but apart from that it all seems to go to plan. The crews then move inside the craft to rescue trapped passengers.

The morning’s final exercise is a breathing apparatus course inside the Airbus-sized monster being undertaken by staff from Eggborough Power Station, which lies near the M62 in North Yorkshire.

All events are observed by a posse of disaster management students from Teesside University.

IFTC is the only UK company approved by the UK Civil Aviation Authority to teach airport firefighters and Tim says staff at the centre are proud of what they do. Trainees have gone on to attend some of the world’s biggest air and sea disasters. These include the horrific Piper Alpha disaster when an explosion and resulting fire on a North Sea oil rig claimed the lives of 167 men.

Trainees also attended the Kegworth air disaster when 47 people died after a Boeing 737-400, crashed onto the embankment of the M1 motorway in Leicestershire.

More recently, air crash investigators who received training from staff at the IFTC were called in following the Madrid air disaster.

“Fire is a great servant, but a horrible master – the challenge is to keep it subservient,” said Tim.

“There’s a big sense of pride in what we achieve here. There are people coming in with no experience at all and we’re teaching them to fight fires of this magnitude. These days, the materials we use have got are a lot better, but there are still the fire fighting skills that they need.

“Hopefully they will never need to use them for real.”

Iftc.org.uk