VIDEO: House Provides Firefighter Training Ground Before Being Razed

If you see clouds of smoke billowing from the house at 7359 Marietta Avenue, don't worry about calling the . Firefighters will already be on site.

The fire department is using the house as a training ground before demolition crews push it aside to make room for a parking lot. The city bought the house on Nov. 5.

"This is an opportunity for training that doesn't come along very often and we feel very fortunate to have it," Chief Terry Merrell said.

The department is using a fog machine to generate a smokey environment inside the building. The fog is nontoxic and biodegradable. Last week, different teams worked through search and rescue scenarios where they had to navigate the fake smoke to find a lone body upstairs.

"This is as close as we can get to an actual home fire where we can simulate that activity," Merrell said. "The firefighter is literally blind with artificial smoke."

He said the firefighters might get an opportunity to work on more aggressive scenarios next week, where they hack their way through a wall or ceiling with axes. He said the department is waiting to hear what parts of the house are salvageable before it conducts that type of training.

"There will be holes in the roof, the windows will be broken out," Merrell said. "It'll look pretty rough when we're done." 

The Maplewood City Council will discuss the future use of the lot at its meeting on Tuesday. The city hopes to expand the public parking lot that currently surrounds the house, but that measure requires council approval.