Providing Adequate and Balanced Trainer Facilities for Required and Recurrent Training for Airport Firefighters

The FAA has funded several regional airport firefighting training centers. These training centers are inherently complex, expensive to construct, and costly to maintain.  After a few years, some of these training centers have fallen into disrepair, and FAA funding to repair them has been limited.  As a result, several training centers have closed, and the rate of closures has been increasing, particularly due to environmental issues such as perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS).  These closures have made it difficult for firefighters to find proper training facilities that are relatively close to their home base, and with recurrent training being required every 12 months, concerns are that airport fire departments across the nation may not be able to meet FAA requirements.  Research is needed to assess the current state of airport firefighting training capacity and to consider longer-range requirements relative to possible system capacity shortages, increased demand, limited funding, and environmental concerns. The objective of this research is to assess the current state of airport firefighting training capacity, estimate future requirements, and describe options for meeting future needs, including methods for planning, approving, building, operating, maintaining, funding, and decommissioning firefighter training centers.

• Record URL:
  http://apps.trb.org/cmsfeed/TRBNetProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=5404
• Supplemental Notes:
  • This project has been combined with ACRP 04-34 and the work will be addressed in that upcoming RFP. See https://apps.trb.org/cmsfeed/TRBNetProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=5407

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Proposed
• Funding: $350000
• Contract Numbers:

  Project 04-31

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Airport Cooperative Research Program

  Transportation Research Board
  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC    20001

  Federal Aviation Administration

  800 Independence Avenue, SW
  Washington, DC  United States  20591
• Project Managers:

  Griffin, Matthew

• Start Date: 20230912
• Expected Completion Date: 0
• Actual Completion Date: 0

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Airports; Facilities; Firefighters; State of the practice; Training
• Subject Areas: Aviation; Education and Training; Safety and Human Factors; Security and Emergencies; Terminals and Facilities;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01854715
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Transportation Research Board
• Contract Numbers: Project 04-31
• Files: TRB, RIP
• Created Date: Aug 16 2022 2:15PM