“Boots On The Ground”: Teessider Honoured For Leading Global Fire Training With Greener Focus

He never expected to stay for 15 years – but now Teessider Mike Dodds has won a top award from one of the biggest companies in the world.

The 36-year-old from Ingleby Barwick, who works at the Serco International Fire Training Centre (IFTC) based at Teesside International Airport, has just picked up a Serco Impact Award – beating thousands of fellow employees from across the globe.

The honour was for his work reducing the environmental impact of the site’s water treatment systems and fuel use – all while helping train emergency crews from around the world in some of the most realistic fire scenarios.

Mike is the Technical Services Manager at the centre, which welcomes firefighters and personnel from across aviation, maritime, offshore and industrial sectors.

“I’ve been here almost 16 years,” he said. “Most of my working career, really. I started out doing technical support – looking after scenarios – and I’ve managed to work my way up through team leader positions, supervisory roles, and now I’m the technical services manager.”

It’s a role that sees Mike at the heart of one of the world’s most respected live-fire training centres – with international teams often on site for intensive exercises.

“We’ve a number of firefighters from Poland and Prague this week – and the French coming in a couple of weeks,” he said. “We’ve got a mix of aviation, offshore, industrial and maritime design scenarios.

“This simulates an A380, but it’s not just that – it can simulate a turbine hall, pump repair, electrical repairs – all sorts of things.

“You’d be surprised – it shows the validity of the training. You can get a lot of firefighters with 20 years’ experience who struggle with certain things. That’s why it’s so important.”

One of the big changes Mike led was the switch to hydrotreated vegetable oil – or HVO – as the centre’s primary fuel for live burns.

“We wanted to reduce our environmental impact and we’ve tested a lot of different substances,” he said. “We still wanted to create a realistic training scenario for the delegates. We’ve found HVO gives us all those benefits.

“It significantly reduces the CO2 produced and carbon emissions. You can see from the fires we’ve already had – there’s very little black smoke.

“When we were using kerosene, there were huge black plumes for miles, whereas now it’s very light grey smoke. Sometimes almost just steam.”

Crucially, it still performs in the right way under pressure.

“It operates in a very similar way to kerosene – which is important – so it offers a realistic training element,” he added. “It just has a slightly different flashpoint, but for a training environment that’s not too critical – we can design the rigs in a way that mitigates that.”

He said the wider industry is starting to catch on.

“We know there are a couple of airlines who have been testing with HVO too and it’s the way every industry is going.

“It’s been used in diesel wagons because the emissions are so low. It’s certainly an interesting product – and it’s working for our training requirements.”

Mike’s message is clear: real-life, live-fire training can’t be replaced by simulations alone.

“Ultimately, all the companies we host – whether international or UK based – all want to know how they reduce their impact,” he said. “Live fire training is critical to teaching. It’s not something you can learn over PowerPoint.

“We’ve now added things like VR to the mix. But, ultimately, that will only get you so far. A real scenario will get what you need.

“Boots on the ground is where the real training happens.”

While they’ve also switched to LPG in some settings, Mike explains it doesn’t always offer enough realism.

“You can’t compare an LPG-style fire with a liquid fuel fire,” he said. “This adds that extra layer of realism you can’t really match.

“It’s so important because it gives the customers the option of training in as hyper-realistic a scenario as you can.”

Now an award winner, Mike admits he stumbled into the job while studying at university.

“It was a complete fluke, really,” he said. “I was studying at university at the time – and this was a job I happened to come across.

“I was lucky enough to be accepted and all of a sudden, 15 years later, I’m here and loving it still.

“One of my favourite things is seeing the different UK and international clients coming through – from different walks of life, areas and industries.

“It’s fascinating to listen to how they perceive their training, watching them train and seeing how they develop from the start to the end of the week.”

Mike is proud to fly the flag for his home region.

“I’m from Teesside – and a lot of people don’t really know what we offer here,” he said. “It’s a great conversation starter to talk about what we do and what we offer.

“The rigs themselves – we do radiological exercises, wind turbine exercises, pump and electrical scenarios. It might look like a one-trick pony from a distance, but it really isn’t.”

The centre has over 40 different training scenarios and continues to expand.

“We recently invested in a new offshore helicopter – and we invested in a new electric vehicle,” Mike said. “We’re constantly looking to adapt.

“Having that realistic training is what it’s all about. It shouldn’t just be a tick-box exercise. That’s what we’re striving to do – to make sure they go away happy and confident in their level of understanding.”

Mike’s recent Serco Impact Award recognised major improvements to the water treatment works at the fire training centre.

“There is a lot to the water plant,” he explained. “We use an environmentally friendly foam product which is protein-based – and that’s because firefighting foam can contain a lot of nasties.

“We recycle our water and we recycle our fuel. The protein-based foam is as realistic as possible and allows us to break it down and reuse the water again and again, without having the health or environmental concerns associated with traditional foams.”

The entire site is bunded, with a full drainage network and self-contained interceptors and separators to prevent foam contamination.

“It’s quite difficult to manage in the normal Teesside weather when it’s raining for half the year,” Mike added. “But it’s great to have in place from an environmental point of view.”

Reflecting on his award win, Mike said: “It was quite emotional. Serco is a very big company and some of the amazing stories I heard from people across the company – who’d done amazing things – made me almost think I didn’t quite warrant the award.

“But it was on innovation and what we’d done on the water treatment plant. We’d installed some new firefighting pumps, and we were recycling fuel more effectively and making that process even more streamlined.

“As a result, it’s meant our environmental impact has been significantly reduced.”

Phil Forster, Managing Director of Teesside International Airport, added: “Mike’s recognition is incredibly well deserved – and his work is a credit to Serco and to Teesside.

“Serco has been a loyal and valued partner at the airport for 40 years, delivering world-class fire training that brings people here from all over the world.

“We want to build on that partnership even more – and continue welcoming visitors to train here and to fly here, whether it’s via Amsterdam or elsewhere.

“We’re proud of what Mike and his team are doing – and we hope his career continues to flourish at our airport.”

As for Mike, he’s just glad to be making a difference – in his own way.

“It’s quite fascinating,” he said. “We’re doing something here that not many others can. And I still love coming into work.”