BATON ROUGE - The Louisiana State Fire & Emergency Training Academy in Baton Rouge has set up a new program for firefighters and first responders to address problems with pipelines carrying carbon dioxide.

It's called the Louisiana Pipeline Emergency Training Program, which features a CO2 pipeline training prop for Louisiana.

The training course will be two days, with day one being a pipeline awareness and operations custom class. It will last four hours at River Parishes Community College in Gonzales.

Day two will be hands-on at the academy, focusing on responding to and controlling CO2 releases as well as gas and liquid-fueled fires.

This is the result of a $50,000 donation from ExxonMobil, owner and operator of the largest CO2 pipeline network in the United States.

"This prop will actually have a burn feature on it, where it will actually catch on fire, and we'll show the firefighters how to put the fire out. If it catches on fire, how do you get the valve to turn off to extinguish the fire as well? It will simulate what would happen in the field if something like that happens," Louisiana State Fire Marshal Bryan Adams said.

According to officials from the State Fire Marshal and the academy, this training is the first-of-its-kind in Louisiana.

"Actually, we were sending firefighters and first responders to Texas A&M, where they have this similar prop where they do that training, so now we're trying to bring it home and bring it back to Louisiana to our first responders, this very informative training," Adams said.

The course fees will be covered by ExxonMobil; however, participants will be responsible for their own travel and lodging expenses. At a recent training session in Texas, officials say that 85 of 120 firefighters from Ascension Parish were volunteers.

"We've noticed over the last five or six years that the level of interest in our pipeline trainings at Texas A&M for Louisiana-based firefighters has grown significantly," ExxonMobil Pipeline Company's Michael Smith said.

After cutting the ribbon on the new prop, a live demonstration was given on how firefighters would respond to a CO2 leak at the pipeline.

"We're gonna have a crew on a fire truck, just like they'd respond in real life," Fire & Emergency Training Academy Superintendent Tracey Normand said.

The firefighters entered the fenced-in area with the pipeline, dressed in full heavy gear. They began spraying the pipeline with a hose, putting it out.

"They put a water stream on it, encapsulated the product, and waited for bleed down after contacting the pipeline company," Normand said.

The entire time, the firefighters are paying attention to which way the wind is blowing.

"In an emergency response, we either look for which way the smoke is going, or we look for which way the leaves or trees are blowing," Normand said.

Normand also discussed the dangers of CO2 and why training like this is so important.

"CO2 can give you a thermal injury if you're not careful, and also cause inhalation problems, displacing oxygen, which is what a CO2 extinguisher does. It's more or less the danger of the temperature and the danger of the oxygen exclusion, so if a normal person walks by without any breathing gear on, it basically takes the oxygen away from you," Normand said.