Nov. 10--Area teens will have the chance to practice search and rescues, learn how to battle blazes and make connections with local firefighters next year as part of a new fire science course offered at Cheshire Career Center.
Supporters of the program say not only will it provide introductory training to students interested in a career in firefighting, but it also can fill an important community need by training potential volunteer firefighters for small-town departments with limited resources.
Students who complete the course, which will be offered starting next fall, and pass all required exams will receive a Firefighter 1 certificate that's recognized in New Hampshire and more than 30 other states.
Cheshire Career Center Director Jim Logan said he first started looking into a fire science program a couple of years ago. He attended a statewide meeting on career and technical education and heard about how successful a firefighter class at Dover High School was.
Dover started its program in 2010. Since then, Mascenic High School started a program and the Manchester and Concord school districts are planning to start up soon, said Meredith Lund, a captain with the N.H. Fire Academy and the New Ipswich deputy fire chief.
By the end of next year, there will be six programs across the state, and the plan is to start enough regional programs to reach every student who's interested, she said.
The Cheshire Career Center serves students from Fall Mountain Regional High School, Keene High School and Monadnock Regional High School, and is based at Keene High.
Students from Conval Regional High School in Peterborough have attended the Mascenic program, and the Jaffrey-Rindge Cooperative School Board is considering an invitation to send some Conant High School students to Mascenic, possibly starting as early as January.
The Firefighter 1 program covers a variety of skills, including using protective equipment, radio communication, basic first aid, understanding the phases of fire and learning the difference between building types.
Students have to pass each module, which includes a classroom component, hands-on skills exercises and then a quiz, Lund said. Then, they're eligible to sit for the state exam, a 100-question written test and a practical exam that can pull from any of the lessons they learned throughout the year.
Students who complete the course will have certificates for wildland firefighting, CPR and professional rescuing, said Graham J. Gitchell, who will teach the course in Keene.
"They'll come out of it with a pretty impressive list of certifications," Gitchell said. "If they're interested in fire science as a career, that gives them a huge leg up."
After the pilot year, the Cheshire Career Center will add an EMT course to the fire science program. With Firefighter 1 and EMT certificates, high school graduates will have completed two-thirds of the training required to qualify as a full-time firefighter.
Gitchell has taught chemistry at Keene High for 17 years. He's also volunteered with the Westmoreland Fire Department for about a decade, so Logan said he was a natural choice to help establish the program and teach the course.
Gitchell started volunteering at the Westmoreland department as a way to give back to his community, but he quickly caught the firefighting bug, he said.
That's exactly what fire department leaders hope will happen with these high school courses.
When Rindge Assistant Fire Chief Keith Dupuis was a young firefighter a couple of decades ago, there were at least 35 people on the department roster and a waiting list, he said during a presentation to the Jaffrey-Rindge school board Monday.
"We don't have people knocking on our door (today)," he said. "We have a roster of maybe 20 guys ... so basically, we're trying to get some youth."
The fire academy requires schools with fire science programs to work alongside local fire departments. For one, it sets up the potential for firefighters to mentor students.
But it's also necessary because of the expensive equipment required for training. Individual gear for firefighters costs about $2,000 and an air pack, or self-contained breathing apparatus, costs about $5,000, Lund said.
That's one puzzle piece the career center still has to figure out, Gitchell said. One possible avenue to acquire gear for students is to require them to participate in local fire departments' Fire Explorers programs for teens ages 14 to 18, he said.
The career center won't increase its budget to pay for the fire science program, and some start-up costs will be covered by federal grants for career and technical education, Logan said.
The Keene Fire Department also is willing to help as much as it can, Chief Mark F. Howard said. That might include offering instructors for special lessons, scheduling training days at the fire station or lending equipment.
Lund, with the state academy, admits she was leery of the idea of training high schoolers to be certified firefighters at first. She worried about their youth and about whether they would take the classes seriously. But the students absorb all the material like sponges, and Mascenic students have proved helpful on live fire calls they're allowed to participate in, she said.
Plus, the classes give students confidence and self-esteem and stress the importance of reliability and teamwork. For those who want to attend college, Lakes Region Community College offers up to six credits for the fire science course and other graduates have received college credit from their schools, too, Lund said.
"It's just a win-win situation," Lund said. "And the best of both worlds is when they come back from college and settle down, and we've got them as volunteers for life."
Kaitlin Mulhere can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1439, or [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @KMulhereKS.
Copyright 2013 - The Keene Sentinel, N.H.
