FARMINGTON – Thickening white smoke quickly swirled into the first-floor room of a former grocery store on Saturday afternoon off Route 2, nearly obscuring eight firefighters in full gear.

They stood quietly, their attention riveted to the voice of Nick Martin, a firefighter with the District of Columbia Fire Department and an instructor with Traditions Training LLC of Pennsylvania.

Martin, who is assigned to Engine Company 11 in the Columbia Heights section of Washington, D.C., was mostly obscured by theatrical smoke as he explained how to break into a locked door during a structure fire.

Martin was one of four national firefighting instructors teaching 25 firefighters from Auburn, Dixfield, Farmington, Jay, New Sharon, Portland and Wilton all aspects of fighting a structure fire. Topics included hose advance, forced entry, ventilation, survival and rescue.

Saturday was the first day of a two-day seminar at a sprawling two-story faded yellow building between Farmington Ford and Irving’s. The training was held by the Franklin County Firemen’s Association.

“In a significant smoke condition, how do you find out if a door opens inward or outward?” Martin’s voice asked from somewhere nearby within the near-zero-visibility room. “Knowing this changes what tool to use and how to use it.”

Wham! Wham! Wham! Loud booming sounds suddenly erupted in the ceiling from the second floor, nearly drowning out Martin.

Firefighters with Martin paid the noise no heed. They knew it was coming from New York City Fire Department Lt. Doug Mitchell’s vent, enter and search class of eight Jay firefighters, working in teams of two.

“The forced-entry teams upstairs are using tools to bang the floor to make sure it hasn’t been compromised,” said Lt. Timothy D. Hardy, fire inspector for Farmington Fire Rescue.

In a matter of seconds, Mitchell’s class learned how one firefighter could attach a prying, twisting, punching or striking tool called a Halligan to an extendible ladder, and then shoulder and carry the ladder to the side of a building.

The combat-ready approach, as Mitchell called it, teaches a firefighter how to shave seconds from his work to get a ladder to a building and gain entry as fast as safely possible.

Nearby, instructor Danny Doyle of Pittsburgh showed firefighters in his class how to carry 150 feet of hose from the truck to the rear of a building and up a flight of stairs before the line was charged with water and ready to spray.

New York City firefighter and instructor Mike Stothers stood inside the smoke-filled room on the second floor teaching Mitchell’s class how to safely climb into and out of the room, and how to sweep for victims before checking the floor’s structural integrity.

“We’ve been very fortunate in this county,” Hardy said. “Without the financing we’ve had, we wouldn’t be able to bring folks like this in.”

He said the seminar was a chance for big-city firefighters to teach their rural Maine counterparts new techniques, while simultaneously learning Maine firefighting techniques.

“It works two ways,” Hardy said. “Not only are we learning from them, but they learn from us and take back what they haven’t even thought of doing yet.”

For Wilton firefighter Sean Estabrook, the seminar was a much-welcomed learning opportunity.

“This is absolutely awesome,” he said. “These guys from big cities like New York and D.C. that are here doing this, they see more action in a week than we do in a year, so their knowledge is just incredible.”