Recruit Academy

[lcfire2601]

My department and a neighboring fire department are looking to conduct a joint Entry Level Firefighter Academy. I am curious to hear how other departments train their firefighters to prepare them for response and still meet the NFPA Entry Level Firefighter requirement. Currently the County fire departments conduct a Recruit Academy consisting of 2 weekends of Firefighter training, 1 weekend of Hazmat Awareness and Ops. and 2 weekends of Basic Wildland Firefighter. My concern is the first 2 weekends of Fire training as they do not meet the minimum hourly requirements and the people coming out of this portion do not demonstrate proficiency in the subjects learned. Any thoughts, suggestions or comments are appreciated.

[KenNFD1219]

The regional fire school in my area offers a Fire Fighter I course on 2 weeknights and Saturdays. The program runs well over 120 hours and includes Haz-Mat awareness. Have you looked at the lesson plans from IFSTA? I do not see how 4 days of training qualifies anyone as a structural fire fighter. The CT Fire Academt recruit program runs over 10 weeks, Monday through Friday with night classes too. Recruits graduate at FFII and Haz-Mat Ops.

Haz-Mat Awareness should take about 8 hours, Operations about 32 hours.

I have no idea how long basic wildland fire fighter training takes.

[mayday12]

are you talking about volly academy or certified academy?

[Firefighter2230]

are you talking about volly academy or certified academy?

not trying to start a volly vs. career deal god knows that horse has been beat so many time's its not funny any more. But is there a difference in the type of academy?

[Spencer534]

Are you looking to just give the guys some info so they can start riding or are you looking to certify them to enter structure fires?

[Frosty42]

My .02 worth....

1. If you are serious about starting an academy, make it certified. This includes following the IFSTA FFI program and using certified Fire Service Instructors.

2. Ask yourself this question...If we train our personnel at this academy, can we defend the training program in court?

3. If you require all new firefighters to be FFI certified by an outside source, then use this academy as a tool to annually verify knowledge/skill/ability.

It's all about training. Everything we do is based on it. From a legal standpoint, how can you defend it if god forbid someone was to get injured or killed out in the field? People are going to jail these days for not properly following industry recognized training guidelines and the last thing anybody needs is for us to become our worst enemy. Just my advice as we are all happy to provide some guidance, but consider all angles including the legal system when going down the road of formalized training.