Firefighters set fire to house to improve firefighting techniques

MISHAWAKA, Ind. -- Firefighters set fire to a house on McKinley Highway in Mishawaka Friday to study how they can improve firefighting techniques to save the lives of firefighters.



"What we're doing today is trying to find better, safer tactics to fight fires," said Brian Kazmierzak, Division Chief of Training for the Penn Township Fire Department.



Kazmierzak says firefighting tactics that have been used the last 40-years are somewhat outdated.



"We've always used to charge inside, no matter what we charged inside. What we're doing now is we are not going to stop going inside, but I always like to make it a football analogy. We are going to stop the forward progress of the fire from the outside. We call it hitting hard from the yard," said Kazmierzak.



One goal is to reduce the number of firefighter deaths.



"If you look at the study about 30 firefighters every year die from flashovers inside fires. Those are the firefighter deaths we are really trying to prevent," said Kazmierzak.



The results are expected to be released in June.