Firefighter 1 update

[KnghtAzrael]

A while ago I mentioned that my wife and I passed are First Responder training and would be starting Firefighter 1 classes. Well I thought I'd post an update we both passed the Fire 1 course and are now certified Firefighter level 1. To give those of you without an idea of what this took I want to explain some. The class its self isn't to bad but the way they stretch it out takes up about 6 months and includes several stand alone sections you have to pass in order to pass the class at all (ICS, Hazmat operations level, Wildland fires ect), then near the end of class we went to the live burn facility at the academy. There they put the class through about 8+ hours in full gear (about 60+ pounds of hot gear) rotating through various stations that you have to pass to instructors satisfaction (dumpster fires, car fires, ventilating a roof with chainsaw and of course rehab) and finally the Burn building itself where in a concrete building housing a controlled fire (keeping the temperature around 300-400 degrees) you have to do search and rescue, venting roof with an axe, attacking the fire and disconecting utilities/back up hoseline. If you pass all this to instructor satisfaction you obtain permission to take the final exam and practicals. The final exam I don't think is to bad you get 100 questions with a few hours to do it and need to score a 70% or better. Practicals can be difficult as there are five stations and only two you know in advance Gear race in which you start out of gear and have 60sec to get it all on correctly and SCBA which you start in most of your gear and have 60sec to turn your air tank on get the pack on, finish getting head gear and gloves on and be breathing air from the tank. The final three testing stations are randomly chosen by the academy and can be anything we were trained on that one firefighter could do alone. For me the only thing I was really nervous about was the live burn day as I am an asthmatic and if it bothered me then i could have failed easily, especially with the fact instructors have the right to decide for medical safety your done.

Sorry for the long post but I'm really excited about having passed and very proud that my wife passed as well there were not a lot of females doing the class and going into training she had a fear of fire. Also this is a big accomplishment for us simply because we are Volunteer Firefighters not full time so we not only didn't get paid to train and do this we actually lost work hours to do it as well.

[Abbax8]

Ray,

Congratulations ! What you and your wife accomplished is a big deal. It's a big deal because the skills you sacrificed to learn will benefit others while you continue to give of yourself.

Thank You for that !

Dennis

[Jonathan Randall]

Ray,

Congratulations ! What you and your wife accomplished is a big deal. It's a big deal because the skills you sacrificed to learn will benefit others while you continue to give of yourself.

Thank You for that !

Dennis

Ditto!

Congratulations to both of you.

[Webmaster]

Congratulations to you both! Awesome accomplishment!

[Silent memory]

Sounds like you are learning a lot of useful stuff there. Lets hope you don't get to put it into practice as much as people think they may need.