The Pembroke Fire Department officially opened its new training facility on Sunday afternoon with a ribbon cutting ceremony.

The Freddie Cook Training Center was named in honor of longtime volunteer and Assistant Chief Freddie Cook.

"Freddie was a very loyal and dedicated volunteer until he passed away," Chief Peter waters explained in his letter to the fire committee recommending the name. "I think it would be an honor for his service and an honor to his family to have the training center named after him," he continued.

The department members dedicated many hours and a lot of hard work to put together a center for training with indoor fire conditions, vehicle fires and rescue situations requiring a rappel entry. The facility consists of a classroom, three story building structure and burn vehicle.

"We’ll actually be able to do live fire training," Waters said. "We can actually have classroom classes now, we can bring state classes out now which we hadn’t been able to do before."

The burn building is made of modified shipping containers acquired through the Firefighter Program of the Georgia Forestry Commission and is designed with an interior set of stairs so firefighters can train in a variety of simulated building fire situations. This structure will provide the PFD with its first opportunity to train locally with live fire within a building.

Interior fires are set, filling the structure with smoke sothe firefighters can have the opportunity to get accustomed to working in real life conditions - working in intense heat and smoke with low visibility. This controlled fire situation will give the mostly volunteer department opportunities to build confidence and gain experience working together as a team in a simulated situation closely resembling what they could face in any given real life call.

In addition to firefighting, the structure provides the opportunity for the department to train for rescue situations. Hand rails will be added to the top of the building to enable rappelling from a third-story height. Windows located in the back of the third floor provide the opportunity to train for rescue situations.

Though Pembroke currently only has two-story buildings, Waters is planning for the possibility of future growth.

"We wanted to go bigger than what we already had because eventually one day you’re going to get there and we might as well be training for it," he said.