Filling the Boots: Stafford kicks off Fire and Rescue Training Academy for new employees

Date published: 12/10/2006

By MEGHANN COTTER

An intimidating silence fills a classroom of 22 recently hired Stafford County fire and rescue employees.

It's Monday morning, Dec. 4, and still dark outside.

No one is whispering.

There's little movement, besides the occasional slurp from a coffee cup.

Everyone's eyes are focused on one uniformed man, sitting on a desk in the front of the room.

Chief Charlie Freeman wastes no time getting started when the clock strikes 6.

Stafford is growing fast, he tells the class. And the Fire and Rescue Department needs to keep up.

"We have a lot of holes we need to fill, and you guys are going to fill those holes," he tells them.

Until now, Stafford's emergency service professionals have taken necessary skill classes as individuals. But all future instruction will happen twice a year through the newly created Fire and Rescue Training Academy, which Freeman and Lt. Erick Kling are teaching.

Training schools are common nationwide in larger departments that hire a lot of new people each year. Many counties in Northern Virginia provide such programs to fill vacant positions and maintain skills among employees.

Most people coming through Stafford's first class are filling new positions being funded by ambulance fees that the county started collecting in October. The remaining students will fill existing vacancies.

For 17 weeks, Freeman and Kling will groom their recruits to fight fires, provide medical care, survive dangerous situations and work together as a team. They'll train physically and mentally for challenges they might encounter on the job.

By graduation in March, Freeman promises, they'll be "well certified, qualified and in shape."

But first, a few rules:

"Don't be late; you'll be in trouble," he says.

Bad weather won't change the class schedule--not even the outdoor physical training planned once or twice every day.

"It's not like we don't fight fire in the snow, so it's not like it's going to be anything new," he says.

Have integrity.

Stand at attention when officers walk into the room.

Say good morning to every person you walk past.

Give 110 percent.

"You may not like us as instructors some days. That's the way we set up the system. You may not like each other, but you still have to work together as a team," Freeman says. "You guys are recruits--remember that."

Stafford Fire and Rescue Chief Rob Brown has given Freeman conflicting orders on how to conduct the academy: Make sure everyone makes it to graduation, but be tough enough that those who make it can handle the job.

"We're making sure, when they graduate, we are putting the best of the best on the street," Brown says.

Each recruit is, at minimum, a trained EMT. But they all come from different backgrounds and levels of experience.

First in an occasional series on Stafford's first Fire and Rescue Training Academy class. By the numbers The ambulance fee Ambulance fees are funding most of the new positions that will be filled by recruits in Stafford's first Fire and Rescue Training Academy. Insurance companies are billed $350 to $550, plus $9 per mile, each time someone uses the county's medical transport services. Officials expect to collect $1.9 million by June 2007. No one is denied help because of inability to pay. And uninsured or underinsured people with household incomes lower than $100,000 can apply for financial hardship waivers. Neighboring counties, such as Spotsylvania, Westmoreland and Orange, collect ambulance fees, as well.

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Date published: 12/10/2006