TRAINING DIVISION
Springdale Fire Department members train daily on a wide variety of topics. Some of those topics include fire, emergency medical services, hazardous materials, various technical rescue disciplines, administrative,
leadership and management. The Training Division assists with ensuring firefighters meet minimum standards, meeting continuing education requirements for fire, rescue, HAZMAT, and EMS, scheduling and hosting outside training, and logging and tracking training data.
Training is conducted throughout the city dependent on what the requirements are. There are three classrooms available two at Station 1 and one at Station 6 with video conferencing capabilities at all stations. Each company also conducts officer designated daily training at the individual stations. The Department will soon have a state of the art training facility capable of simulating fire, rescue, and HAZMAT incidents. This type of training will only improve the great service our members currently provide.
WHY DO WE TRAIN?
Emergency Responders are required to be experts at every incident they respond to. They do not have the luxury of not knowing what they are doing when time is of the essence. Therefore we must train for the worst case scenarios for fire, rescue, HAZMAT, and EMS. Training has to become second nature so firefighters can perform well under high stress.
Department members are required to complete minimum amounts of training based on local, state, and federal requirements to obtain and maintain the certifications required to perform many of the tasks required of the job. The requirements are set by OSHA, ISO, State of Arkansas, NREMT, and other agencies. Members must complete 20 hours of fire training monthly, between 40-60 hours of EMS training annually, quarterly HAZMAT and MCI drills, officer development, along with new hire and promotional task books. This can fill up a day pretty quickly when you add in responding to emergencies as well as completing daily tasks such as inspections and station maintenance.
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