A unique opportunity for local Indigenous youth to learn about Fire Prevention and careers in structural firefighting will be given next week.
October 16th and 17th in conjunction with First Nation Emergency Services Society (FNESS) and School District 27, the Williams Lake Fire Department will be holding a two-day boot camp.
Fire Chief Evan Dean said students from all over the region will be able to spend two full days at the fire hall offering the students hands-on experience.
“This Boot Camp is considerably more controlled than the ones our firefighters go through and it takes less time which takes us about 18 months to complete similar training. They will have a crash course glimpse into a number of skills including auto extrication, forcible entry through a doorway and some extinguishing of fires.”
Dean noted that the students will be working alongside with firefighters depending on the type of exercise that they will be going through.
“They may be doing it on their own hands on or they may be doing it with a firefighter, and then occasionally there will be ones just for demonstration sake we’ll have some of the experienced firefighters doing it for them.”
Dean said this is the first time we done it in the Cariboo.
“FNESS has done this program a couple of times previously and they’ve had a lot of success. They reached out to me a couple of months ago just to see if we would be interested as well as the School District.”
Dean said the first day is broken into learning all about appropriate PPE (Personal Protection Equipment), fire safety, fire science, and the next day is a little bit more of the practical skills and they get to have a little more fun.
As of right now Dean noted that they have 23 students grades 10 through 12 signed up for it.
Something going on in the Cariboo you think people should know about?
Send us a news tip by emailing [email protected].
