It's been 30 years in the making but a new state of the art fire training facility has finally been built in Augusta County.

A simulated fire is just one way firefighters from across the Valley can train and become better educated on fire patterns.

Augusta County Fire Chief Bruce Crow says, "If a firefighter gets trapped say, inside of a closet, inside a house, there’s a prop up there he can physically reach the wall to get out, or there’s a hole above him we can simulate pulling up him through the ceiling."

At a ribbon cutting ceremony celebrating the opening of the facility, Augusta County Board of Supervisors chairwoman Nancy Sorrells talked about how important it is to protect the volunteer firefighters.

She says, "They're putting themselves in harm's way and this is a way to give back to them, to reward them for what they're doing and to make their job easier."

The $1.3 million facility is bringing new opportunities to fire fighters as well.

Crow says, "We're required, as career staff, to provide two burns a year to each of our fire fighters. That's something that we've never been able to do since inception."

This facility isn't the only thing planned for this area. Sorrells says more development is still to come.

She says, "We're gonna have class room facility, outbuildings, things like that. So, this is just the beginning. There will be more enhancements to this facility."

The facility is considered a Class B, which means this has more state of the art technology than most other similar facilities in the state. People in the area are very proud of their new facility.