The house at 2206 California Ave. s.w. in the Admiral District is in for a rough week as Seattle Fire Department recruits use it to practice extinguishing fires and hone their rescue and teamwork skills from Nov. 9-12.

For the 18 SFD recruits on hand, the training represents a chance to get out of the classroom and put their knowledge to the test working real fires in a real structure.

“(The training) all culminates in the live fires we do here,” said Dave Powers, recruit coordinator for the SFD who has been with the department for 29 years.

According to a SFD press release, “up until now their training environment has been controlled with simulated incidents at the City of Seattle’s Joint Training Facility and the Washington State Patrol’s Fire Training Facility in North Bend. There will be sixteen fires ignited over the course of the week. Each day the fires will grow more intense and provide more challenging situations for the recruits.”

Powers said the fires are started with pallets strategically placed throughout the house. Initially, they ignited pallets in front of the house to get everyone warmed up then started moving into the house.

Mannequins are also placed in the house to practice rescues and they employ a smoke machine to further hinder visibility, Powers said.

The fires will be set in a counter clockwise pattern from 9 a.m. until about 4 p.m. throughout the week, however, “we won’t burn the building down,” Powers said.

The house, which was donated to the SFD by a developer who owns it, presents a few technical issues for the recruits as its location on busy California Ave. limits their ability to move the trucks around and recruits have to be weary of traffic as they practice, Powers said.

“Usually we don’t do these types of burns except at the end of the recruit class,” Powers said. “There are so many negatives … it creates air pollution and there is the potential for runoff and we are trying to reduce the amount of runoff to a minimum.”

According to Powers the recruits are going on their twelfth week of training and after they finish up with the house, they will be split up for one more week of training at stations across Seattle. On Nov. 19 the training will be complete and they will start their careers as firemen.

Before the burning began, the fire department went into the house and salvaged unique wooden trim molding and leaded glass windows. Next, they had to remove all the carpets and wooden paneling before putting sheetrock up, which is required by the National Fire Protection Association rules, Powers said.

“You cannot have unpredictable materials in the building, so we do all that to make it a safe environment for our folks to work in,” he said.

Powers said the neighbors and neighboring businesses have all been understanding and patient with the significant presence of fire trucks and the constant scent of smoke in the air.

Directly across the street from the training house is All About Kids Infant and Childcare Center.

“The kids have had their faces mashed against the glass since we started, so it’s fun for them,” Powers said.