Botetourt County, Va. – Just after 5 a.m. on Friday, the Troutville Fire Training Center in Botetourt County was severely damaged in a fire. The building, located next to the Troutville Fire Department, has long been used to train emergency responders across Southwestern Virginia. Two responders who were already on site from an earlier call spotted smoke coming from the building and reported it.
When crews arrived, they found heavy smoke and flames pouring from the structure and quickly called in backup from neighboring departments, including Blue Ridge, Fincastle, and Roanoke County. Fortunately, the building was empty at the time, and no injuries were reported, but officials confirm the structure is a total loss.
Ironically, firefighters who have trained at the facility were called to put out the fire. Troutville Volunteer Fire Chief, Zach Beckner, who has been with the station since he was 16 years old, says the setback is personal.
“Well, it’s sad, right,” Beckner said. “There’s a lot that we built, and there’s a lot of stuff the leaders of this department early on helped shape. So, there’s a lot of memories.”
Botetourt Fire and EMS Chief, Jason Ferguson, says the community lost valuable resources in the fire.
“There’s still training props on the ground,” Ferguson said. “A lot of the training props in the building were unique and things that’ll take time and effort to build them back. Maybe we can build them back to refresh them in a different way.”
The center has served as the primary training location for Botetourt County’s 2025 Volunteer Firefighter Academy and hosted community programs such as fire prevention education, CPR, and 911 training. Also, just last year, Botetourt County launched its own independent training program separate from the Roanoke Valley regional system to train more people in the county, without capacity issues.
Despite the setback, both chiefs say the work of training first responders will continue and that they still have the support of the Roanoke Valley.
“Yes, this is a tragic loss for us,” Ferguson said. “But if you look, there’s always a silver lining and I think that future looks brighter once we get past the darkness.”
“We’re not going to let this certainly hamper our training activities,” Beckner said. “We got other facilities. We have another building right beside us that we can do similar training in.”
As of Friday afternoon, crews were still monitoring hot spots while investigators began working to determine the cause of the blaze.