FIRE DEPARTMENT TRAINING MANHOURS 2009

 

 

 

     The fire department spends a great portion of the daily work schedule involved in continuing education and training.  As previously mentioned the Bureau of Labor requires 6000 hours of training for those employees in the Apprenticeship Program over a three year period.  The state requires 40 hours of emergency medical training each year to renew your Emergency Medical Technician License.  Haz-Mat Technicians are required to train 16 hours each year.   The department requires each water rescue diver to complete at least six dive training exercises.  The department practices and trains on rope rescue, auto extrication, trench rescue, confined space rescue, incident command, hydraulics, self-contained breathing apparatus, firefighter self-rescue and the list goes on and on.  In 2009 four of our firefighters completed their E.M.T. training which takes three months and 120 hours.  Two firefighters attended training in Indianapolis, Indiana at the Fire Department Instructors Conference, the worlds largest training event.  Over 30,000 firefighters attend the six day training which is world class, taught by the industry’s best.  Five firefighters in October of 2009 attended training at the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Maryland.  In 2009 the department had 3412 man-hours of training in house and  2107.5 hours of training received outside the department.  That’s an average of 204 hours per firefighter, I would suspect that’s higher than any other career department in the valley.  This is one area I would like to increase spending and make training outside the department available to anyone wanting to attend.  There is a direct correlation between training and safety.