The N.P.P.D. Cooper Nuclear Power Station, Fire Brigade spent Wednesday afternoon training with live fire inside the Bellevue Fire Department’s Fire Training Center.

Inside the building, a fire raged, flames scorched the ceiling. Down a hallway, a two-man fire crew barreled through the doorway to battle the flames head on.

Slowly, the lead firefighter doused the flames with water, until it was extinguished.

"The fire brigade is looked upon by the regulator as the line of defense,” John Shrader said. Shrader is the Safety Team Lead for the N.P.P.D. Cooper Nuclear Power Station, Fire Brigade. "Since the majority of our cooper nuclear power plant is buildings, the potential for a fire inside is typically much greater than an exterior or outside type fire,” Shrader said.

Wednesday, 15 men trained to re-qualify to stay on the team.

It's in the live fire training crews can attack different scenarios and get a better grasp of how to use the hose and how to attack the fire in a close proximity. That live training can help them become the assets in the field to successfully extinguish fires.

Woody Klinger is a Station Operator and was one of the first crews through the doors for the training. "Some of the training we've learned here today the techniques we used, especially the hose handling, the nozzle handling could apply to any interior fire we may encounter,” Klinger said.

Fire Marshall Kent Newcomb said while rare, fires have happened at the Cooper Station. "The last fire we had was a hot work operation that it was a small fire that started in a trash bag, it was 2 to 3 inches high, we don't even want those,” Newcomb said.

Wednesday was the second of three days of re-qualifying training for all105- members of the N.P.P.D. Cooper Nuclear Power Station, Fire Brigade.