ROANOKE, Va. – If you see smoke coming from Roanoke’s airport in the next few days, don’t panic.
The Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional Airport started holding live burn training on Tuesday.
The training happens twice a year as the airport brings in an aircraft simulator to mimic what a real-life pit fire, engine fire or rescue would look like.
Going through this practice helps keep skills fresh if there’s a real emergency.
“We don’t want to have to think about if we get called to an incident like this. We want to be there and know we’ve felt this before. We know what to do. We feel the heat. We smell the smells. We do all the stuff. We know kind of exactly what exactly is going on,” explained Ben Cook, the airport’s director of public safety.
The training continues through Thursday