Training day.

Flames lick smoke during the burn.

There is no fake smoke, however. This is real. A live burn.

The burning down of a house in the 1100 block of Franklin training ended five days of training with it, Roanoke Rapids Fire Chief Gary Corbet said.

The house was one property owner Sambo West wanted to get rid of, Assistant Chief Ricky Dickens said. "It was to the point it needed a lot of work."

Firefighters Friday set hay and pallets in every room of the house to get several training aspects done, Dickens said.

Firefighters put water on the house.

"We got five days of training out of it," Corbet said. "We got a lot of work behind the nozzle."

The house also helped firefighters practice a technique called vent, enter and search. "We're doing attack training and letting some of our new people get some live training, to let them know what it's like in the real world."

Roanoke Rapids firefighters were not the only ones getting training from the burn, Corbet said, firefighters from Weldon and Davie, as well as Gaston's fire chief participated.

Watching Friday's burn was retired Roanoke Rapids firefighter Wes Hamby, who shared some history about the lot the house was on.

Ledgerwood Hall, a recreation center for the mills, used to sit on the lot, he recalled. The house that was burned was moved to the lot when a new road for mill traffic had to be cut and the recreation center torn down.

Flames come out of the window.

Burning a house is not as simple as just torching it, Corbet said. "The state comes in to inspect it for asbestos. We take the furniture out so it's a shell and we get to make five or six runs through it. It's a great way to do real training and the owner has a lot smaller pile left to take away."

Surprisingly, the fire department gets three or four requests a year from property owners requesting a burn. The requests are studied for safety concerns, Corbet said, including how close the requested house is to other property. "Some people want to clear a lot and subdivide it. Sometimes the house is dilapidated. Sometimes the lot is worth more than the houses on it."