CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) Albemarle County Fire Rescue held their final training session for their 2025 recruits with a simulated burn on Friday.

The 23 recruits worked in teams to put out the fire in a multi-story apartment building simulation and while the apartment complex is not real, the fire certainly is.

“These scenarios give our personnel experience with actual fires and opportunities to practice real-time decision-making skills,” Public Information Officer Reagan Whitlow told Cville Right Now.

Friday’s simulated burn at the Albemarle Regional Training Center on Peregory Lane is much more complex than it might have seemed.

“There’s a lot of things that go into fire that people don’t realize,” said Albemarle County Fire Rescue recruit Joshua Meehan. “There’s a lot of different jobs. We’ve got three different teams working inside the building all at once.”

The three teams work together to control the fire. The first team is Fire Attack, which runs the hose in to put out the flames. Next is Search and Rescue, which is looking for victims and pets that may be trapped. Then the ladder crew, which set up ladders at safe exits to give the other teams the escape routes they may need.

For many in the community, they may not understand the full process of training for the ACFR forces.

“When the community typically sees us, it’s either worst day of their life or they just see us driving around the truck. They don’t really know what’s behind it,” said Meehan. “I want the community to see that this is what we’re trained in. We all signed up to help. That’s what we’re here for. There’s no other reason to be here than to serve our community.”

The recruits’ 26 weeks of training prepares them for all that might come their way once they join the ACFR forces after their graduation at the end of this month.

“We spent six months before we came out here just learning the books,” said recruit Tyler Harper. “We’re learning how smoke works, how fire works, and taking care of victims.”

Meehan said the training was both intense and in depth, and that firefighters have a wide range of knowledge to battle fires.

“There’s building construction, there’s flow rates, there’s kinds of nozzles. You have to understand how to use different equipment,” said Meehan. “Only after you master that can you do the hands-on learning to actually get that physical experience.”

Once the studying and training is complete, the recruits can go on to the more intense simulations like Friday’s burn.

“I will say, the simulated burn is pretty stressful, but the training has prepared us for that stress,” said Harper. “We know what to do, we’re just relying on our instinct and training. We focus. We get the job done.”

Working together for the six-month training has brought the recruits closer each day and many of the recruits will end up working together after graduating the program.

“We’re a family now, honestly,” said Harper. “We have spent so much time together for the last six months and we’ve gone through all the same struggles.”

According to Whitlow, the 2025 recruit team is the most diverse that Albemarle County Fire Rescue has ever seen.

“Everybody’s got different backgrounds, different skill sets,” said Meehan. “Some are really young and it’s their first job and others found it later in life, but we are all here for the same reason, to help our community.”

The recruits consist of 19 men, four women and range in age from 19 to 41. While the team may be filled with very different people, they are all working together to train and, after graduation, serve the Charlottesville community.

“We’re putting in all the work we need to do to make sure you’re safe, that you can rely on our training,” said Harper. “This is the hardest working group of individuals I’ve ever seen and we will protect you.”