VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — The Harry E. Diezel Fire Training Center in Virginia Beach just got a huge upgrade.
The facility is located off Birdneck Road in Virginia Beach.
The city added on 16,700 square feet of training space, including a workout facility for large incoming classes. It can fit 30-60 recruits simultaneously, now.
The expansion also has instructor and recruit locker rooms, showers, oversized washing machines, and space for the fire department's specialized gear.
Essentially, the new elbow room will provide more space for firefighters and recruits to learn, train and practice new skills.
“Being able to get in there frees up a lot of much-needed classroom space in our current facility, and it lets us turn our current gym, which is much smaller, into some additional training," said John Carver, the fire department's captain of training.
Carver said they work closely with the military and other first responders in Hampton Roads — and they too will benefit from the massive upgrade.
"We host a lot of training here and we’ve definitely outgrown our current facility and classrooms space and stuff like that, so being able to move into this frees us up to do a lot more work," Carver said.
He told 13News Now they started moving equipment into the facility Thursday, and hope to finish in the next couple of days.