Class is in session for firefighters at Public Safety College

CASTLE HAYNE, NC (WWAY) — Firefighters risk their lives every day. Many steps must be taken to save others and themselves. It’s a good thing there is a program to teach firefighters exactly what they need to know.

Firefighters of all ages were invited to the New Hanover County Firefighters Association Public Safety College.

This is a yearly event that trains attendees proper procedure when tackling different obstacles when saving lives such as ventilation, basic fire fighting, hazmat, extrication, fire behavior and more.

Noah Kuehn has been a a firefighter for a year and he finds every opportunity to learn more.

“It’s been a blast. It’s really awesome when you have the men and women from the around the area, willing to give their time to teach us. Especially me, I’m a younger generation firefighter and their knowledge is extremely helpful,” Kuehn said.

Besides practicing, this program is meant to teach one other thing to the firefighters.

“Teamwork is a very vital part of the fire service. You got to rely on your buddies up there. Especially when you’re doing ventilation, that second guy behind you, he’s a big vital part about whether or not you can do your job correctly and safely,” Kuehn said.

Chris Nelson is the Fire Training Rescue Coordinator and says this program helps both new and veteran firefighters.

“We do have those brand new firefighters here who have never done any of this before. So some of the things they are learning is for the first time. Some of them are more advanced. and take our leadership classes. That is for the folks that have been around, so it is a reinforcement of what they learned before as well as some new things to help them be good and efficient leaders for their departments,” Nelson said.

Nelson says that even though this event is helpful for the firefighters, it also helps him give back what he was taught.

“We all started at some point and we had the people we looked up to who are mentors and are teachers that we learned a lot from. It’s our turn now to give that back…and watch them grow in the fire service,” Nelson said.

Nelson also says that more than 400 firefighters came out from all over the state for this program and he hopes even more firefighters will come out next year.