The Fire Academy and Firefighter I Training

Did you grow up wanting to be a firefighter, riding on fire trucks and putting out fires while wearing all the bunker gear, boots, helmet and SCBA or did it just seem like a good idea one day?  Sometimes people witness a fire or emergency before they decide it's something they want to do also.  Whether you have always dreamed of it or decided recently to become a firefighter, all the formal training starts the minute you join up at the firehouse and continues on into the fire academy when you start your Firefighter I Course.

Whether you are taking Firefighter I to become a career firefighter or volunteer firefighter, the training is totally the same.  If you enroll in classes at the academy nights and weekends it's about three and half months of some intense training including classroom lecture and hands on live fire training. 

   

Go to each class prepared.  Get some binders or notebooks because you really want to take alot of notes.  You will get a textbook and a work book and homework.  Yes, homework and reading assignments too.  Being prepared for the Fire Academy means showing up for every single class with your reading assignment and homework done, properly shaven, alot of fire academies have a dress code for class and they mean it too.

Bring your gear, all of your PPE and SCBA when its needed for that class.  Whether you pack it in gear bags, wear it or carry it, make sure you have it or your class is wasted and there's a good chance the instructors will send you home for the day with a class to make up.  Firefighters Need To Be Prepared - So Do It Right.

Being a firefighter means learning right from the beginning that there are rules to follow and many of them will save your life or someone elses. 

It means understanding from Day 1 that we are a team.  We work together, we learn together, and very often we laugh and cry together.  Always a team.

Whether you are learning to pull your 1-3/4" handline off the first response fire engine to do an interior attack on a structure fire

Or learning how to climb out a window of a structure on fire maybe with a victim to rescue

Or learning how to hook up a hydrant

Remember to give it your all.  Learn it, practice it over and over.  Go back to your station and talk to your firefighters there, I'm betting they will be happy to do it with you.  They remember because they were at the Fire Academy once too.  You may not have to use all the skills you learn, and you may not use all of them often, but when you need to use them seconds count.  Lives are on the line.

 

Make your education and Firefighter I mean something not only when you are a rookie but later on when you are the seasoned veteran working in the field and teaching the new recruits.

Be proud of your graduation from the Fire Academy.  Trust me, you will work hard to learn how to be a good firefighter.  And just when you think you learned it all because you graduated and passed your Firefighter I test, well, the learning just begins.  Great firefighters never stop learning.  They practice, train and keep their skills as sharp as their axes.