David W. Smith/ Daily NewsJeff Young, left, Fire Prevention Education Officer for the Scottsville Fire Department shows off a fire alarm in the new Fire Safety House Safety Trailer during a demonstration for Pam Smith and workers at Camp Courageous near Scottsville Monday.

SCOTTSVILLE — Nearly every fire department has trucks, but the Scottsville-Allen County Fire Department is one of the few to have a traveling educational tool.

The department recently acquired a fire safety house, a three-room trailer that can replicate numerous emergency scenarios to teach people what to do in the event of a fire.

The particular trailer the department received retails for about $53,000, but the SACFD was able to secure it through a donation from the Elizabeth Turner Campbell Foundation and contributions from several local government agencies, businesses and civic groups.

“This had been a 12-year process to obtain this,” said Jeff Young, fire prevention officer with the SACFD. “We had actually started out building one ourselves.”

The trailer has three rooms – a replica kitchen/living room with a working stove, microwave, sink and bleacher seating, a replica bedroom with a rope ladder leading out from the window and a tiny control room from which the operator can pipe smoke into the adjoining rooms through air ducts to help simulate a fire.

Young said the department plans to take the trailer to local schools, nursing homes and festivals to educate the public on fire prevention.

The kitchen area features a fire alarm that can often be found in commercial buildings, with its piercing shriek letting people know what to expect when an alarm goes off in a business.

A fake fireplace also serves as an educational tool in the kitchen area, showing people that it is hazardous to put things close to it.

In the bedroom, there is a door that can be heated to simulate what it can feel like to be in a room on the other side of a fire, with smoke curling into the room through the bottom of the door.

“You have to use the back of your hand to find out whether it’s too hot to touch the door,” Young said. “If you see smoke coming from underneath, you can pull off the bedsheet and put that at the foot of the door to contain the smoke.”

The bed is on telescoping legs, meaning that in an actual emergency situation, it can be lifted and placed against the wall while the bedroom serves as a command center for fire and rescue workers, complete with working phone lines and radio outlets.

Several wall-mounted cameras are located throughout the trailer, both to help the operator in the control room observe what is happening in each room and to help people outside the trailer learn more about fire prevention by watching a TV monitor located in a compartment on the trailer’s exterior.

If you dial 911 on the wall phone in the kitchen, your call will be directed to the control room, where the operator can simulate an emergency call, better preparing people for actual fires.

Young said one of the more important features is the rope ladder leading from the rear window in the bedroom area.

“To survive an emergency, it’s about reaction more times than not,” Young said. “I know kids can be scared of heights, but when they practice climbing out on the rope ladder on the trailer, they can be better prepared to react when there’s a real fire.”

Among the places where the fire safety house will be used is The Center for Courageous Kids, a new campground for children with crippling diseases located on Burnley Road in Scottsville.

Dana Spencer, a member of the Campbell Foundation, which established the center, said the camp counselors would undergo training exercises on the fire safety house to better prepare them to handle emergencies when the camp opens at the end of this month.

“We thought this would be an excellent way for our counselors to receive more training,” Spencer said.