Firefighters from all over Person County and as far away as Tennessee were on hand in Timberlake Saturday to take part in a training exercise that could move area fire departments along in their efforts to achieve lower insurance ratings. The live training involved setting fires in an old, abandoned home adjacent to the Timberlake fire station and giving teams of firefighters the chance to extinguish the fires. Along the way, Timberlake Fire Chief Jason Fletcher said, firefighters learned about the nature of fire, how it spreads, how it reacts to water and ventilation and, most importantly he said, how to communicate with each other when they are battling a real blaze. “This is a team-building exercise. That’s the real thing. You’ve got to communicate with the person in front of you, or behind you. You’ve got to communicate with command staff on the scene,” Fletcher said.