Rep. Michael Burgess was a physician for 25 years before being elected to the U.S. Congress, he said Thursday to a group that included many police officers and firefighters. He knows what it’s like to wake up in the middle of the night and have to react swiftly and surely at a moment’s notice.

His respect for emergency professionals was one reason he worked to procure $350,000 in federal funds to help build Denton’s new public safety training center.

“Police officers and firefighters stand ready to help the citizenry,” Burgess said. “They deserve no less than the best training we can provide. This is a down payment on repayment for their efforts.”

Burgess, R-Lewisville, was in Denton on Thursday to look at plans for the new training center and the 88-acre site it will lie on next to Fire Station No. 7 on Vintage Boulevard in far south Denton.

He and Mayor Perry McNeill emphasized to the group that the facility isn’t just for Denton, but a regional training center that local public safety officers can use to help train other agencies.

“We’ll recover a good portion of our operating expenses by charging other agencies for training here,” McNeill said.

The pair, along with several City Council members and other city officials, as well as police and fire officials from adjoining agencies, toured the city’s new “green” fire station that is touted as one of the first in Texas. Fire Training Capt. Brad Lahart showed off the state-of-the-art building that he said is 39 percent more energy-efficient than a normal building.

McNeill said he began pushing the idea of a training facility seven years ago. The city bought the land in 2004 and hired an architect to draw up plans in 2005.

The plans show a large training building on the east side of the fire station. Behind the two buildings, the plans show a 22-stand shooting range, a swift-water rescue pond and stream powered by a pump, outdoor classrooms, buildings to practice extinguishing fires and roof collapses, and training props for extrication and tanker and railroad crashes.

McNeill said he hopes the training center will open in 2009.

Burgess said the surrounding area always has had to deal with natural disasters such as tornadoes and floods, but the area has been comparatively sparsely settled. Now, he said, many more people are affected.

“We have all these challenges,” he said. “And now we have a large population that we need to protect.”

DONNA FIELDER can be reached at 940-566-6885. Her e-mail address is dfielder@dentonrc.com .