Crew leaders from the Medical Lake, Airway Heights and Spokane Fire District 10 fire departments take their oaths during the West Plains Fire Academy graduation.
The West Plains Fire Academy held the graduation of its second 2014 class on Thursday Dec. 18 at Medical Lake High School.
The academy consists of firefighter recruits from Airway Heights Fire, Medical Lake Fire and Spokane County Fire District 10. The graduating class had a total of 23 recruits - eight from Airway Heights, two from Medical Lake and 13 from Fire District 10 - and nine crew leaders.
The academy requires a large time commitment by the new recruits as they spend about four and a half months and roughly 216 hours of time in classroom and hands-on training.
During the academy, the recruits are taught the basic skills of firefighting, which include health and safety, fire behavior, building construction, firefighting tactics, hose streams and other tasks associated with the fire service.
Recruits are trained up to the International Fire Service Accreditation Congress (IFSAC) IFSAC FF 1 and IFSAC Hazardous Materials awareness and operations levels. They are then able to take the IFSAC certification tests that are nationally accepted.
In conjunction with the firefighter recruit training, the agencies sponsor the Crew Leader Academy (CLA) that had members from all three departments.
The CLA is for current firefighters who have previously graduated from the firefighter recruit academy. Each crew leader is assigned a company of recruits to supervise and demonstrate skills learned, as well as teach additional skills in a leadership role.
The accumulation of the past four months of training was confirmed at the Washington State Fire Training facility in North Bend, Wash. Dec 13-15, where live fire was used to allow recruits to demonstrate their skills in dealing with emergencies.
The graduates have successfully completed this commitment on a voluntary basis and are essential to each agency's ability to provide 24/7 emergency Fire/EMS response to their respective communities. Residents may see these new firefighters soon responding to emergency calls in their respective areas.
The members of the graduating class also presented their class banner at graduation.
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