Airport undergoes 'live fire' training after contract switch

May 9—TRAVERSE CITY — Contracted firefighters joined local firefighters at the airport for annual training exercises Wednesday.

This joint training opportunity was the first time they've collaborated after last May's Traverse City Fire Department's contract termination with Cherry Capital Airport concluded more than 20 years of working together.

Pro-Tec Fire Services, out of Kalamazoo, was contracted in August. Lt. Keith Hooker with Pro-Tec said his crew drove the airport's firetrucks during the training, while TCFD officers hosed down the flames and retrieved the dummies.

Hooker said although Wednesday's training was his first at Cherry Capital, he had trained at the Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport.

"it's been a pretty good experience," Hooker said. "It's actually the first time for some of the guys here working with our specialists."

The relationship between the two agencies during the exercises "worked really well," he said.

Since Cherry Capital is within Traverse City limits, officials said if a fire breaks out, TCFD firefighters would respond.

"They're still going to respond to all aircraft accidents and incidents and they're here to work with Pro-Tec and for life safety for everybody," Cherry Capital's Chief Operating Officer Dan Sal said. "Approximately 20 firefighters from city fire are trained in all of this already and they're very familiar with our trucks and the training."

The big difference now is that, instead of having a TCFD firefighter on-call at the airport 24 hours a day year-round, Hooker said Pro-Tec fulfills that duty.

Looking ahead to the busier summer months from June through October, Pro-Tec will increase the number of on-call firefighters from one to two four days a week for 12 hours of those days, in case of emergency.

Besides the trainees, all of the training steps were the same as in previous years, down to the hollowed-out fake metal airplane that they set on fire to stimulate an airport emergency.

In groups of four, firefighters combatted multiple scenarios under the coaching and guidance of former airport firefighter and owner of ARFF Specialists Louis Kurtz from Duluth, Minnesota.

"Get inside, go," he ordered, as the firefighters rushed inside the smoke-filled airplane structure to save the plastic dummies that were inside.

Each year, Kurtz said his company travels to 120 different airports in 15 states to train 2,300 firefighters. This training is required for all airports to complete annually to meet Federal Aviation Administration standards.

Kurtz assured everyone present that the gas used to create the flames, the water used to extinguish them and the enveloping smoke they left behind are all environmentally safe.

After the first round of the simulation finished, he said the materials they've used over the years have changed to be more earth-friendly.

Since he founded ARFF in 2010, Kurtz said the biggest change in the training is the shift away from foam containing per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.

"We're currently in a big transitional aspect of incorporating the new fluorine-free foams, which don't contain any PFAS and are environmentally safe, and getting rid of the old AFFF foams, which contain that PFAS," he said. "So it's been a very interesting time the last couple years."

Because Wednesday's training was a simulation, Kurtz said that new foam wasn't utilized and the firefighters practiced extinguishing the fires with water from the trucks.

According to Sal, none of the trucks have the PFAS-free foam quite yet.

PFAS, sometimes called "forever chemicals," don't degrade in the environment and are linked to a broad range of health issues, including low birthweight and kidney cancer.

In 2021, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances were found in the groundwater in an East Bay Township neighborhood near Cherry Capital Airport and U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Traverse City. Because of the mandated use of the firefighting foam and its historical use in training, airports have joined the long list of known and suspected contamination sites nationwide.

Sal said the plan for the future is to fully transition all of the airport's firetrucks away from the PFAS-fueled foam and employ the fluorine-free foam in all of them instead. Unlike the old foams, Sal said the fluorine-free foams can't be mixed together.

The airport purchased a new Oshkosh 1,500-gallon fire truck made specifically for airports that will have a different kind of foam that does not contain PFAS for close to $750,000 last year, according to previous reporting.

That new truck is the only vehicle in their fleet that doesn't have any foam, Sal said.

"There's two manufacturers that are on the qualified products list right now and we're working on active quotes for both of those products," he said. "Once we decide what foam we're going to be going with, we're going to be stuck with that foam for awhile."

After those quotes come in, Sal said the airport will focus on cleaning the PFAS-foam residue from the old trucks, which will cost between $30,000 and $35,000.