The Casper/Natrona County International Airport is receiving an almost $9 million in government funding to update its firefighter training facility, according to Gillette News Record.

Every commercial airport in the country is required by the Federal Aviation Administration to have a training facility for aircraft rescue and firefighters. Each year they need to be trained and up-to-date on the latest plans-of-action. The Federal Aviation Administration is funded by taxes from airplane tickets.

The training facility in Casper was opened in 1995 but has not been upgraded since. This renovation will be great for training purposes. The firefighters prefer to train in Casper because they use diesel fuel for fire scenarios (diesel makes the fires more realistic). The money will go towards a new 3,000-gallon ARFF vehicle, reconstruction of the training building and will help expand the Airport Public Safety Facility.

If the airport did not receive this help most likely the training facility would have been shut down for good.

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