| Saturday April 28, 2007
Another successful Firefighter 1 class ended Saturday with completion of the practical skills exams. This year firefighters from Potsdam, Canton, Pierrepont, West Potsdam and Russell completed over 107 hrs of training. The course is based on the NFPA 1001 Standard for Fire Fighter Professional Qualifications and covers all the basics of firefighting from the history of the fire service to search and rescue procedures and interior fire attack. The instructors for the course, West Potsdam 1st Assistant Chief Robert Pierce, Canton 1st Assistant Chief Robert Crowe, and West Stockholm 3rd Assistant Chief Merrick Bunstone.
This is the second year that the Firefighter 1 course has been taught in house and in those two years, 40 new firefighters have received their national Firefighter 1 certification through Onondaga Community College's Public Safety Training Center, our partner in this training venture. Those successfully completing the class not only receive national certifications in Firefighter 1 and Hazardous Materials Awareness but they also receive 3 college credit hours from OCC that can be transferred to the student's college.
The students in this years class include: Elizabeth Schongar, Nikita Hungerford, Nicholas Wildey, and Shannon Brown from Potsdam Fire; Matthew Maynard from Russell Fire; Justin Dowdle from Pierrepont Fire; Aaron Sabree from West Potsdam Fire; and Jessica Thompson, Mark Dalton, Adam Leggett, Kyle Thurston, Andrew Cooper, and Paul Metzler from Canton Fire. A special thank you goes to the Canton and Potsdam Fire Departments for the use of their facilities, Clarkson University for the use of Damon Hall, Drew McFadden for his proctoring skills, and Rich Flanagan, Director of the OCC Public Safety Training Center, for all his assistance in making this class a reality. |
