Monterey County SWAT and Salinas firefighters get realistic training

An old rundown apartment complex in Salinas turned into a training ground for firefighters and Monterey County SWAT on Monday. Crews teamed up with the Monterey County Housing Development Consulting Corporation to create real life scenarios.

It’s an opportunity for deputies and firefighters to use skills in training they normally don’t get to. They did it all before a building at East Rossi and Bridge Street is demolished to make room for 41 single units for senior citizens.

“It is more realistic. You have a real building that wasn’t designed for training so it’s good to see our skills in these types of buildings,” firefighter Jesus Ramirez said.

“We’re doing manual breaching, explosive breaching, and shock-gun breaching and so for real life things that we do, this is going to be huge for us because we don’t get to do this every single day,” Monterey County SWAT member Jesus Perez said.

Salinas firefighters got a head start on their training. They had crews out there over the weekend as well.