“Typically, you don’t have the opportunity to go out and break things,” said Mike McAuliffe, battalion chief and training officer for the Bothell Fire Department.

But according to McAuliffe and some of the firefighters he has helped train, breaking things, knocking down doors and cutting actual holes into actual roofs — not to mention cutting into crushed cars — are highly legitimate, potentially life-saving skills and experiences firefighters just might need to have on the job.

Starting about two years ago and taking advantage of the city’s several large-scale capital improvement projects, Bothell’s emergency crews have had what McAuliffe called once-in-a-career opportunities for some hands-on “destruction training.”

Starting with homes that were ultimately removed for the ongoing work at Wayne Curve, Bothell’s firefighters have been able to train in numerous buildings around the city. They did extensive work in at least three commercial buildings vacated to make way for the realigning of State Route 522. Most recently, they have been put through their paces in the former Hopelink building now slated for demolition.

Bothell Lt. Adam Lamb said local officials definitely shared their sudden wealth, undergoing joint training operations with the Northshore Fire Department in Kenmore, as well as fire and rescue squads from several other surrounding cities.

Lamb noted that calling the exercises “destruction training” makes that training sound like guys with heavy tools having fun. And he and others said the training indeed can be fun. But, obviously, there is a serious side to it, as well.

“You rarely get a chance to cut a real roof,” Lamb said. The city has a simulated roof firefighters train on, but Lamb insists that it’s no substitute for the real thing.

“So much of our training, you just have to pretend,” added firefighter Josh Prince. He said the recent training was about as real as training can get.

“We have a training tower,” continued firefighter Jason Emerson. “But we’ve been up and down it more times than you can count.” He said having a different environment to work in makes a huge difference.

“It’s an opportunity to really push yourself,” said firefighter Doug Werts.

At the former Bothell Landing shops and in two other nearby retail buildings, firefighters went through, among other exercises, search and rescue drills and practiced what McAuliffe called vertical ventilation.

Basically, such ventilation is one reason firefighters might cut a hole in the roof of a burning building. Lamb said the technique basically creates a makeshift chimney, giving the smoke and heat of a fire an escape route and allowing better access and visibility within a burning structure.

At the former Hopelink, training also has included search and rescue operations, practice working in confined spaces and contending with obstacles such as electrical wiring. Firefighters even piled up wrecked cars and practiced victim extraction techniques.

“It’s stuff you just don’t get to do until somebody on (Interstate) 405 decides to stop using a bridge abutment,” Lamb said.

Prince noted the department only recently put its extraction techniques to good use when a pick-up rolled over on the freeway.

McAuliffe and others said actually burning buildings is complicated and often involves environmental issues, so in the course of the training, Bothell’s department has started few real fires. Still, Werts noted they intend to burn, then douse, a few rooms at Hopelink. Officers hoping to become certified as fire inspectors will then need to figure out what happened in the burned areas.

McAuliffe said he wanted to publicly thank city staff, especially City Manager Bob Stowe and the public works department (who piled up those cars) for their help with setting up the training. He noted police and Public Works employees also went through some exercises in the various buildings.

While the firefighters emphasized the professional benefits of the training, they did return to the fun of it several times.

“Everybody leaves training with a big smile on their faces,” said Emerson.

Prince quipped “that what happens at Hopelink stays at Hopelink.”

“You need to get through a wall in 10 seconds, I’ll show you how to do it with a 10-pound sledge,” Lamb concluded.