Training centre profile
eThekwini Metro Fire and Emergency Services’ Training Centre
Burn building, drill tower and streetscape under construction
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Thekwini Metro Fire and Emergency Services is currently constructing a stateof-the-art training facility at its Illovo Training Academy, situated at Illovo on the South Coast, about 30km from Durban Central Fire Station.
complete with chemical unit, rescue pumper, PIER unit and similar, a three storey ‘burn’-building and proposed facilities for confined space rescue, trench rescue, urban search and rescue (USAR), motor vehicle extrication and hazardous materials (hazmat) training.
Training manager for eThekwini Metro Fire and Emergency Services, Alex Gloster, gave Fire and Rescue International a tour of the facilities still under construction.
Training was originally, as Durban Fire Department, conducted at brigade headquarters. As the area developed, the impacts of training activities saw these functions moved to Jacobs Fire Station on Solomon Mahlangu Drive. With the development of the metropolitan fire service, the training functions were moved to Lower Illovo (2 Liberty Way) and efforts have, and continue to be, invested in developing a formal facility at that location.
Gloster explained that the operational area of the new site covers some eight hectares. It has an administrative footprint providing for offices and administration and which allows for future developments of proposed lecture auditorium, parking and student accommodation. Current capacity and efforts to extend capacity include a steel drill tower, some 2 500m2 of ‘hot’ground complete with a control tower, some 400 000 litres of recycled water complete with pumps, sand-oil-andgrease (SOG) filter and microbial filters, five ‘dirty’ classrooms to accommodate approximately 100 students, five ‘clean’ lecture rooms to accommodate some 100 students, a four-bay appliance bay Volume 3 | No 7
The new site was originally the Illovo Sugar-and-Syrup mill, built by CGSmith. Illovo constructed a syrup mill to the immediate west of the original site, accommodated the sugar processing at other Illovo sites and razed the original site almost entirely to the ground. The remaining buildings were taken over by the then South Local Council and used to accommodate a variety of offices and functions. These included
vehicle impoundment, town planning, town engineers and similar. Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) was run out of one of the buildings and the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) utilised a volume of space in the general elections. Space became available as the ABET training became more centralised and other functions relocated. The fire service occupied initially one and then several offices and
Alex Gloster
FIRE AND RESCUE INTERNATIONAL | 43