It's been almost a year since Oscar Armstrong III, a young Cincinnati firefighter, died in a Bond Hill blaze from a "flashover." Yet a new simulator to train fire crews to recognize signs of such an explosive burst of flame sits unused.

Firefighters, like police officers and soldiers, need to be constantly trained to recognize and react, in split seconds, to lethal threats. Fire Chief Robert Wright says his small staff of five trainers is too busy with other work to use the simulator right now, and firefighters union president Joe Arnold says the police force has more than three times that number of trainers. Mayor Charlie Luken thinks the fire chief needs to take another look at his assignments because training needs to be a priority. Luken is right. Either the chief should assign more people to training, or the city needs to find another way to make maximum use of the simulator. One way might be to regionalize fire training, and share the cost of trainers among departments.

After Armstrong's death, the Cincinnati department mandated that every firefighter should be trained on the flashover simulator. The equipment, bought with a 2002 federal grant, arrived last summer. It's housed in a semi-trailer and is designed to allow firefighters to safely experience the early warning signs of an imminent fireball: extra-black smoke, a sudden heat surge and tendrils of flame that show the fire has superheated enough to ignite gases in the air with explosive force.

Good training learns from casualties or near-casualties. Jerrold Ware, another Cincinnati firefighter hero, saved a 4-year-old North Fairmount girl from a flashover in August 1997 and survived a dive out of a fourth-floor apartment. Tales of such heroics and textbook classes may not be enough to give new recruits or young-timers a sixth sense of when a flashover is forming.

The simulator is even more invaluable because a 1950 building used by the Fire Department to set practice fires has been condemned, and it could take two to four years to prepare a replacement. More planning should go into maintaining a steady stream of training, especially with the department's increased duties for homeland security after 9-11 and an ever-growing list of bio-chemical hazards.

Firefighters are expected to rush into danger to protect others. That is tremendously dangerous work. Friday, Lexington, Ky., fire Lt. Brenda Cowan was shot dead responding to a domestic violence scene in which a man had gunned down his wife. The dual-trained firefighters/emergency medical technicians arrived ahead of police. Many cities train firefighters not to leave their vehicles until police secure the area, and others jointly train medics with police tactical response units to work as a team.

Cincinnati's fire force is well-trained. Armstrong's death was the first in the line of duty in 22 years. But like the police, firefighters face constantly changing threats, and only constant training can keep first responders at peak performance to protect themselves and the public.