Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

And when there’s fire in Calhoun, the Calhoun Fire Department’s new training facility will escalate already well-trained officers to fight fires as second nature.

The CFD, after months of searching and interviewing, have hired Chris Cox to take the helm of the new training facility.

Cox, originally from Dalton, worked 17 years as a firefighter for the Dalton Fire Department.

When it came to fighting fires, he said it sparked his interested at a younger age.

“I was around a bunch of firefighters and worked part-time with a lot of those guys; it sounded like something I would be interested,” explained Cox. “So, here I am.”

Now, he looks to spend the next 20 years in Calhoun training top-notch firefighters at a top-of-the-line training facility.

“I had heard about this job, and the more I heard, the more it sounded like a great opportunity and a chance to help this department go in a direction it wanted to go,” said Cox. “It’s a great opportunity.”

Cox has been part of the whole process of the training facility, which is still in progress on what will be added and what won’t be. He is looking forward to what it will mean for Calhoun’s firefighters and the community.

“It will be exceptionally good for us. It’s going to give us the ability to do things that we haven’t had the place to do in the past,” said Cox. “It’s going to be able to centralize our training and we will be more able to do more things.”

The realistic way the firefighters will be able to train will propel them to the next level of being a professionally trained firefighter.

“We will be able to do live fire attacks, and we will be able to do it on a multi-floor, multi-story building; that’s a huge thing,” said Cox. “With the training tower, we will be able to do rope training, confined space training and things like that that we haven’t had access to locally.”

Cox went on to say that it will make the CFD firefighters better trained and able to do their jobs better, which in return will make the community safer.

Now, Cox will continue planning, and hopefully be able to see construction in the near future, since the groundbreaking was last week.

“I’m excited about getting out there and making our skills even better than we are now,” said Cox. “They are already great at what they do, but this will give us a more realistic way to train which makes us better.”

The facility will have different parts with interior stairs and living area, and exteriors such as a balcony, which will give the firefighters a bevy of different looks, according to Cox.

“With this facility it will give us different scenarios and different kinds of situations,” said Cox.

The CFD hopes to have the training facility finished by November, but that time line is tentative.

“I’m happy to be here,” said Cox. “The community has been great.”