Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta, Denis Leary of the Leary Firefighters Foundation and FDNY Foundation Vice Chair Andrew Guarino today broke ground on a new high-rise simulator at the FDNY Fire Academy on Randall’s Island. The $4.5 million state-of-the-art simulator, equipped with mock residential, office and commercial layouts, is designed to reproduce real-life fire conditions and help firefighters improve their skills in fighting fires in high-rise buildings and performing rescues under extreme conditions. The 4,000-square-foot structure will be a four-story addition to an existing building at the Fire Academy and will feature a fire and flashover simulator, a central smoke system, a dry standpipe system, mock elevators and stairways, a simulated fire command station and video hookups on each floor for real-time review and instruction. High-rise buildings retain heat and gases that can quickly spread and create hazardous conditions for firefighters, and the simulator will help recreate these scenarios, improving each member’s ability to predict the movement of a fire.

“This $4.5 million state-of-the art simulator that will help train our members for one of the most notoriously complex parts of the job, a high-rise fire,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “Once it’s completed next year, this facility will play an important role at our newly-expanded 23-week training academy. We’ve made a big commitment to improving training in the FDNY – and nothing demonstrates that more clearly than the $60 million we’ve invested in modernizing the Fire Academy.”

“Fires in high-rise buildings are among the most complex and dangerous that a firefighter can face,” said Commissioner Scoppetta. “This innovative training tool will provide the most realistic firefighter training available and allow our members to better understand the science of fire and better prepare them than ever before.”

“We are so proud to be a part of the FDNY’s initiative to provide their membership with the very best training in the nation,” said Denis Leary, President of the Leary Firefighters Foundation. “We deeply appreciate our partnership with the FDNY Foundation and our other major funders, Jeffrey Gural, the Chairman of Newmark Knight Frank, and The Real Estate Board of New York for their generous support of this crucial project.”

“The FDNY Foundation is very excited to be a partner in the building of the High-Rise simulator,” said Executive Director Jean O’Shea of the FDNY Foundation. “The FDNY Foundation Board members and donors believe we all have a stake in a New York safe and secure from fire. Helping New York’s Bravest save lives and receive necessary training and equipment is a direct and crucial investment in sustaining our City’s quality of life.”

The simulator will become an important part of the Fire Department’s newly expanded 23-week training program for probationary firefighters. Since 2004, more than $60 million has been dedicated to upgrading the facilities at the Fire Academy. The simulator was funded through a public-private partnership with the Leary Firefighters Foundation, the FDNY Foundation (the non-profit arm of the FDNY), the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the City.