Firewalls

Masonry Proves Hot for New Fire Fighting Training Academy

By Rob Patterson

Masonry adds charm and character to the structures that foster learning and simulate burning conditions at the city of San Antonio's new $8 million, three-building Fire Fighting Training Academy.

Included in the project are a 20,000-sq.-ft. classroom building, 16,000-sq.-ft. gymnasium and equipment bay and 9000-sq.-ft. concrete-frame burn building.

"Masonry provides a nice traditional look and says something about the civic character of the project," said project architect Mickey Conrad of O'Neill Conrad Oppelt Architects in San Antonio.

The project broke ground in March 2004 and will be completed this month

The one-story structures atop slab-on-grade foundations are faced with Acme Santa Fe blend brick and burnished limestone CMU panels. The classroom building has a sloped standing-seam metal roof.

Groesbeck Masonry of San Antonio used nearly 113,000 bricks and 8,000 pieces of burnished block as wainscot and window panels on the project. White mortar adds a final aesthetic element. "It looks pretty sharp," said company president James Groesbeck. Another 34,000 lightweight gray CMU blocks were used for interior walls.

"Masonry gives a lot of design latitude in the different ways materials can be assembled and mixed," Conrad said. "It also allows the masons to show off their craft. And from a maintenance standpoint, it performs well."

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Attention to a completely different set of details was required for the 9000-sq.-ft. concrete-frame burn building at the back section of the site.

"That was a fun project to design because it simulates several different building types," Conrad said. "There's a two-story apartment or motel type of structure. The adjacent tower is five stories with roof deck to simulate going upstairs in office buildings or a hotel on search-and-rescue operations.

"It's arranged on the site with the other outbuildings to simulate the space in an alley or downtown so [trainees] can learn how to maneuver their equipment in tight areas."

Computer-controlled gas-fired props and sprinklers simulate fire conditions. The tower has a replaceable chop panel to practice roof access techniques located on the top level, and different size parapets and ledges help cadets practice laddering and rappelling skills within a variety of building features.

"There's an elevator shaft with three different manufacturer's doors on different floors," said Gary Southard, project manager for the San Antonio office of Mississippi-based W.G. Yates & Sons Construction Co. Specialty lighting fixtures were required to withstand the heat, and thermal tile liners on the inside protect the structure from temperatures of up to 1,600 degrees.

"With every detail that you would take for granted in a normal building, like door and window and stair details, you need to put another layer of design on," Conrad said. "You have cadets that are really going to abuse this stuff. It will be subjected to a lot of heat and then blasted with cold water."

Conrad said the manufacturer of the specialized fire-simulation equipment, Fair Lawn, NJ-based Kidde Fire Training, helped in the design of the specialized structure. "They were able to share a lot of their wisdom with me and help us with many of the details," he added

The 14,000 red split-face terra cotta panels on the exterior of the burn building provide a design element to blend it with the other two buildings.

A concrete slab surrounds the burn building to provide space for basic hose training with straw fires as well as more advanced challenges such as a burning car, overturned tanker or derailed train.

W.G. Yates poured 6800 cu. yds. of concrete for the buildings, slabs and roadways.