A 15-minute delay because of lightning and a steady drizzle of rainfall wasn't enough to deter about 500 people from the public firefighting demonstrations at the Brayton Fire Training Field on Wednesday night.
More than 1,900 municipal firefighters and 502 guest instructors were at the complex this week for a variety of training courses.
Wednesday night, they opened the complex to the public, and several fire school students came out as well.
Kenneth Dollery, who's been a firefighter for 26 years, made the two-hour drive from Alvin with about a dozen children who are members of the town's junior fire department.
"We teach them about all aspects of firefighting and let them do everything but actually fight a live fire," said Dollery, who attended fire school himself for 12 years. "We thought this would be a great experience for them, so we drove up for the day."
Visitors to the complex were shown several demonstrations, including a rescue operation from a high location and several fire-extinguishing drills.
Chris Britton and his 4-year-old daughter, Shelby, sought shelter under a large, slightly singed structure that's used to simulate building fires.
Most of the audience was crowded near a rope line about 50 yards away, but the rain combined with Shelby's height seemed to make Britton's shoulders the best seat in the house.
"We've always heard great things about how large the field is and the training they do for firefighters across the state," he said, explaining the reason he made the two-hour drive from Austin for the demonstrations. "It's great to get to talk to some of the firefighters out here, too. These guys are the first responders to accidents all across the state."
Suzie Vestal also came from about two hours out of town and brought her two grandsons to visit her son, Billy, who is attending this week's fire school.
"We're here just for today, and tomorrow's his 30th birthday, so we're celebrating that, too," she said. "I've always wanted to see what he does and I feel a lot better now, knowing how safe he'll be with this kind of training."
One of her two grandsons, Corey, who's 5, already said he wants to be a firefighter like his uncle, she said.
"They're both loving it," she said. "I guess we'll be back next year."
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