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"It's not reality in the slightest," she said of popular films like Backdraft, which show firefighters without proper gear and equipment.
"A lot of people don't realize what fire is actually capable of doing," Miller said.
"Fire is not light. Everybody believes that because of the orange and red flames, that it is light.
"It is not. Fire is as black as black gets. You can put a flashlight in front of your face and you are lucky you can see the glimmer of light surrounding it," Miller says.
To dispel these myths, and to ensure new volunteer firefighters are well-prepared for such an inferno, Miller says the department takes full advantage when buildings are donated to the department.
"We'll try to get as much training out of it as possible."
With the recent donation of a two-storey wood frame structure at Shell Lake, which was burned in a previous fire, Miller says firefighters had the opportunity to practice ventilation by cutting holes in the walls before starting the controlled burn.
"The purpose of this was for the firefighters to see how fire develops and spreads and basic fire behaviour in real life versus just bookwork," Miller said.
"Within 35 minutes of ignition of that building, we had full collapse," she said, noting the rapid spread of the fire. It's amazing for new firefighters because they were able to see the rapid development of the fire.
"They were able to see how various construction materials react in fire."
Learning to respond quickly to a fire is imperative, especially in the North where a lot of the buildings are now made of lightweight construction materials, she added.
"Anything being built new is made of lightweight construction. Previously we had about 20 minutes from the point of a fire igniting before that structure would be deemed unsafe.
"Now we're looking at about seven minutes before we just get full collapse."
