MARSHALL – Firefighters gathered at a Marshall address Tuesday night — but this time, there was no emergency. The Marshall Fire Department was using a vacant house on West Main Street to conduct training drills and controlled fires.

Marshall Fire Chief Quentin Brunsvold said the home, which has no immediate neighbors or other structures nearby, offers a unique opportunity for fire training.

“There is literally nothing around this building.” Brunsvold said. “We don’t experience this very often.” If the house had next-door neighbors, the Fire Department normally wouldn’t even consider using it, he said.

The Fire Department planned to use the house for firefighting drills and possibly search and rescue training.

Brunsvold said the training opportunity arose when property owner Charles Bladholm offered the fire department to use it. The site appeared suitable, and the Fire Department also worked with a training provider to assess the building for potential hazards.

The Fire Department had originally planned to conduct a day of fire training at the home in early October along with other area fire departments. But the extremely dry conditions and high winds at the time meant it was too risky to train.

Brunsvold said Southwest Minnesota is still very dry right now, but conditions weren’t as risky Tuesday. A big part of this was that there was less wind.

“The forecasts were as positive as they are today.” Brunsvold said. It also turned out that Tuesday was a normal training night for the MFD.

Brunsvold said that the training given by firefighters will be as follows: “It’s a slightly antiquated version of what we had planned.” They would probably be using different methods to extinguish a fire and pulling fire hoses to the area where the fire broke out. He said they can also provide search and rescue training or VEIS training. VEIS (short for ‘ventilation, entry, isolation and search’) is an approach to finding and rescuing potential victims in a burning building, Brunsvold said.

Brunsvold said the Fire Department worked with a training provider for Tuesday’s training.