Selma Firefighters spent most of the day, Monday, ventilating an abandoned and partially burned house on L.L. Anderson Avenue as part of their training exercises for new workers.

Firefighters from stations No. 1, 2 and 3 participated in the training exercises, cutting holes in the roof of the house in order to ventilate it for Thursday’s practice fire.

According to Selma Fire Department’s Chief H. E. Allen, the department chose the house along with two other abandoned houses in the 900 block of L.L. Anderson to burn after city code inspectors condemned the houses.

“We’re training our new firefighters on ventilation and this also enhances the skills of the older firefighters. We have to cut holes in the roof of the house, so that when we burn it, the fire and smoke will go towards the back of the house and not spread to power lines,” Allen said.

The back of the house had been burned twice by unknown subjects and we recently burned down the one next to it,” said assistant chief M. Walker.

Allen added that all three houses have been burned as a result of illicit activities in the area.

“It’s safer for us to burn the houses, instead of getting a call at 3 a.m. that the house is burning. That would pose a threat to the firefighters’ safety and cause a major power failure in this block because the houses are so close to the powerlines,” Allen explained.

He said burning the houses are cheaper than hiring a crew to tear the house down.

“The owner of the three houses lives in New York and she would have had to pay a total of $9,000 to get these houses torn down. But with the fire department burning the houses as practice drills, the cost is very minimal,” he said.

Firefighters plan to burn the house on Thursday.