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MARQUETTE -- Northern Michigan University's Carey Hall has been vacant since the late 1990s, but it's now serving one more purpose before its demolition. The Marquette Fire Department is using it for a training ground.

Live burns are excellent training for firefighters, but this controlled fire is the chance of a lifetime. NMU has offered Carey Hall to the Marquette Fire Department for fire training, and they are taking full advantage of the situation, and just like a real fire, safety precautions are taken.

"We're going to have our backup lines, we're going to have our two in, two out, we're going to be following everything that we have to do at a typical house fire," said Captain Jeff Weston, Marquette Fire Department.

Since Monday, they've been burning about four rooms a day. They set up kindling in the designated burn rooms and get ready. The firefighters suit up, turn on the water, start up the engine, and ignite the fire. As the fire burns as hot as 1200 degrees, firefighters use fans and hoses to push the smoke out of the building. From igniting to extinguishing, the process takes only about 20 minutes.

The Marquette Fire Department has only been here a few days, but they will be here through the end of June savoring the opportunity for training in this kind of building.

"Great opportunity, once in a lifetime opportunity as for the magnitude with the opportunity of kind of a dorm, commercial, more of a larger setting...usually it's just residential structures," said firefighter Kirk Vogler.

With Carey Hall at their disposal, the fire department can practice high rise deployment, just as if it were a hotel, apartment building, or hospital. Live burn scenarios like these also provide an invaluable experience for younger members in the department.

"The more training you get in a live fire and the more you get used to the heat, the better you are in responding to it and acting in it and surviving it," Captain Weston said.

The fire department plans to burn about 30 rooms before the building is demolished later this summer.