PHOTOS/VIDEO: Ann Arbor firefighters are now better prepared to battle blazes in downtown’s tallest buildings, thanks to instruction from a Toronto-based crew of instructors.
Ann Arbor Fire Chief Mike Kennedy said his department reached out to invite Toronto Fire Services Capt. Brent Brooks, who runs a consulting business called High Rise Firefighting, for three days of practical training with local firefighters. Such training is becoming especially important as downtown Ann Arbor continues to grow skyward, with more high-rise developments on the horizon. “With all of our vertical high-rises, we’ve taken a preeminent role in southeast Michigan in dealing with this stuff,” he said. “There’s still hard work to be done with ground-level firefighting, but this is really next-level.”