FARMVILLE — For the Town’s first-ever burn building, the time to hesitate is through.

No time to wallow in the mire, unless heavy snow and winter rains delay first-of-the-year construction of the firefighting training facility.

The contractor is scheduled to come in the sometime during the first week of February to get started on construction.

“This building is designed not to serve just the Farmville Fire Department,” said Town Manager Gerald Spates, promising to open the doors, “but all the fire departments in the county.”

In other words, come on now let’s fight these fires with the best available local training.

The Town is waiting to hear if the Prince Edward County board of supervisors will agree to pay for two-thirds of the remaining $79,682 balance on the project, based on a per capita split the two jurisdictions generally use. But, no matter what, training in the sophisticated mock-residence will be available to all.

“The building is there for all the fire departments,” Spates told town council. “That’s an agreement we’ve got with the state. We’re going to maintain it. The state provides money to maintain that facility.”

The state, via the Virginia Department of Fire Programs, also provided $480,00 in grant funds for the project, with the Town already contributing the required 20 percent match, or $119,000. The contract was awarded in the amount of $529,682.

Burn buildings provide realistic, but safe, structure fire training conditions, with controllable heat and dense smoke, the ability to control heat and smoke in training allowing firefighters to respond with utmost effectiveness and safety when flames and smoke threaten real houses and the people who live inside them.

As First Assistant Chief of the Farmville Fire Department, Dean Farmer, told The Herald, “It is a propane-fired structure so it can be very realistic to being inside an actual house.”

The typical layout contains three to four rooms downstairs and upstairs in the two-story building.

“In the burn building, we will have a kitchen area, a living room area, and a bedroom area, like you would normally have in a house,” Farmer explained.

The burn building’s technology will allow firefighters to alter the intensity of the simulated training.

“We can change smoke patterns, and the amount of smoke we have in the building, to heavy, heavy smoke,” he said, “and then a considerable amount of heat…so it is very realistic to being in a house.”

The seven-department firefighters association, Spates said, has even voted to contribute $200 per department toward purchase of the propane that will be used to fuel the practice flames.

“So they’re very excited about it and it’s going to be a great facility for them,” Spates said. “Plus, it’s going to help our community because the firefighters are going to be better trained.”

The seven volunteer departments are located in Hampden-Sydney, Rice, Farmville, Darlington Heights, Prospect, Meherrin, and Pamplin.

“We welcome people to use it,” Farmer said, adding that the Farmville department will coordinate scheduling.

There is currently no burn building in Prince Edward County and training in Blackstone, for example, can take a fire department out of service for hours, according to Town officials.

A burn building in Farmville is expected to reduce that down time for county departments, which is important were an actual fire to need fighting at the same time.

The realistic training is considered so vital that the Commonwealth of Virginia requires new firefighters to experience a burn building six times during their training.

The burn building will be constructed on land adjacent to Farmville’s old landfill.