For the past six years, the state academy has offered volunteer departments the same level of training that had previously only been available to new hires at full-time departments.
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Staff photo by Patrick JohnsonVolunteer firefighters receive their final instructions before tackling a gas fire during a drill at the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy in Stowe
STOW — Sharon Paquette, of Hampden, is a nurse. Keith Robbins, of Westhampton, works with a landscaping company. Monica Czerwinski, of Hadley, is a student at Elms College in Chicopee.
But Paquette, 36, Robbins, 21, and Czerwinski, 18, all have one thing in common.
All three are firefighters.
They are among the 28 people from Western Massachusetts enrolled in the call and volunteer firefighter training program offered by the state Department of Fire Services.
On this day, class members are at the state Firefighting Academy, learning to combat liquefied natural gas and propane fires. They are learning by doing: suiting up with gear and charging into the very real flames at the academy’s simulated burn areas.
“It’s a great class – especially coming down here for the live burns,” said Robbins, who has been a volunteer firefighter for about 3½ years.
“You learn useful skills,” said Czerwinski.
The most important among them, she said, is being safe at all times.
“There’s no room for error,” she said.
For the past six years, the state academy has offered volunteer departments the same level of training that had previously only been available to new hires at full-time departments. The program covers the same ground, a total of 250 hours, and is a mix of classroom work and hands-on lessons on various aspects of firefighting.
But where full-time, or career, firefighters go through the training in 12 weeks, the volunteer program takes six months and is spread out over nights and weekends while the volunteer firefighters juggle full-time jobs, school and family obligations.
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Staff photo by Patrick JohnsonChris Norris“The guys and gals are absolutely amazing,” said instructor Chris Norris, also a deputy chief for the Northampton Fire Department. “They have families, full-time jobs, some of them are in school. Some of them have two or three jobs.”
The class meets every Tuesday and Thursday from 6 to 10 p.m. for classroom work in Springfield, and then for two day-long Saturday sessions each month at the academy in Stow, a town 25 miles northeast of Worcester.
To remain in the course, recruits need to maintain at least a 70 grade point average.
By the time it is over, participants will have their state Firefighter I and Firefighter 2 certifications, they will know how to fight fires, contain hazardous materials spills, conduct water rescues, free people from wrecked automobiles, and perform basic lifesaving and CPR.
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It only makes sense to train small-town firefighters to the same standards expected for full-time firefighters, Norris said. After all, he said, fire does not discriminate.
“If you have a fire in East Longmeadow or Hampden, it’s the same critical situation as a fire in Springfield or Worcester,” he said.
Norris said one of the advantages of the training for on-call departments is that everyone learns the standard procedures and tactics. Smaller departments are frequently called to assist each other through mutual aid, he said.
“If you’re with East Longmeadow, you learn to throw a ladder the same way they learn in Hampden,” he said.
Instructor Steve Corbett, a retired Northampton firefighter, sees no differences between career firefighters and on-call firefighters. “I admire both for doing what they do,” he said.
The training the on-call firefighters go though, he said, “is certainly better than what they used to get – which is none.”
In Massachusetts, there are roughly 10,000 to 12,000 career firefighters, and 8,000 call or volunteer firefighters. Massachusetts is one of the few states in the country with more career firefighters than call or volunteers.
The terms “call” and “volunteer” firefighter are largely interchangeable. A call firefighter receives some compensation, an amount which varies among departments.
Throughout the state, in particular Western Massachusetts, where there are several dozen small towns, volunteer departments are the rule, not the exception.
According to information from the Massachusetts Call-Volunteer Firefighters Association, it is easier to list the communities that are staffed entirely by career firefighters – Springfield, Westfield, West Springfield, Northampton, Chicopee, Holyoke, Pittsfield and North Adams – than to list those served by all volunteers or a combination of volunteers and career firefighters.
In Hampden, Hampshire and Franklin counties, there are 48 call, or volunteer, departments, and in Berkshire County there are another 18.
When the state firefighting academy was founded in the early 1970s, it was designed to offer the latest training to career firefighters at no cost to their communities. Classes are mandatory for new hires, and there are also classes for longtime firefighters to brush up on their skills.
But until the call-volunteer program was founded in 2005, the academy had no comparable training available for volunteer departments.
Larry Holmberg, of Chesterfield, a volunteer firefighter for 20 years, said the academy training has made a significant difference by improving the qualifications and skill levels of volunteers across the state.
Before the academy was available, it was up to individual departments to train their volunteers, and some did better than others, said Holmberg, the past president and current treasurer of the Massachusetts Call-Volunteer Firefighter Association.
“How good of a firefighter you were was how good of a fire department you had, and its emphasis on training,” he said.
In some cases, several departments across a county would team up for training on the basics over a period of several months, usually over weekends and some weeknights, according to Holmberg. “There were major gaps,” he said.
Holmberg said it’s safe to say that, a dozen years ago, most volunteer firefighters were not as well trained as they are now.
“The fire academy has been a major, major improvement for individuals and departments,” he said.
The call-volunteer firefighters association has for years endorsed a goal of making every firefighter in the state have a level 1&2 certification, he said. That goal is now attainable within the next 10 to 12 years with increasing numbers of volunteer firefighters going through the academy, Holmberg predicts.
“Once you have the basic skills, you build on them,” he said. “And, you build your department.”
Because towns have smaller populations from which to draw, recruits for volunteer departments represent a broad spectrum of age, size, weight and ability, he said. Departments look for recruits who have the heart for the job and can be an asset to their town, he said.
Paquette, who works as a nurse at a private doctor’s office in Springfield, said she decided to join the Hampden Fire Department about a year ago as a way of using her medical training to help her hometown.
“I thought it would be a good idea for there to be a nurse in the department, so I went for it,” she said.
The training program was not mandatory, but she felt she would benefit by knowing more about firefighting. “I thought it was an asset to the department,” Paquette said. “I thought it would be an asset to the town and to the fire department.”
The training has been very vigorous, and Paquette says she is doing her best to keep up with her classmates, many of whom are as much as 15 years younger, a foot taller and physically stronger than she is.
"It's a challenge," she said. "You've got to take it as a challenge and say, 'If they can do it, I can do it.'"
Czerwinski, who joined the Hadley department at 16, said going through the fire academy was her birthday gift to herself.
“I just turned 18. After I graduated from high school, I decided I wanted to come here for this course, so I signed up to take it,” she said.
The program has been everything Czerwinski wanted it to be in terms of providing a foundation for what she hopes will be a long fire career. She said she can see going into firefighting as a full-time profession, even if it means seeking appointment to a department outside of Hadley, such as Northampton or Amherst
While going to the academy, she is juggling college classes and taking care of a horse her family owns. “I joke that I work eight days a week,” Czerwinski said.
One lesson she’s learned is that being a call firefighter means sometimes changing plans at a moment’s notice. “You’ve got to be able to drop stuff,” Czerwinski said. Afterwards, she added, “You get to say ‘I’m sorry, I was out saving someone’s life’ or ‘I was putting out a fire.’”
Springfield, 12/17/11, Staff Photo by John Suchocki - The Boardwalk at Trouville 1870 by Impressionist Painter Claude Monet with Julien Jacquemard and his wife Kelly L. Cummings-Jacquemard. Julien is from Burgandy France. Julien and Kelly visited the French exhibit at the Michelle & Donald D'Amour Museum of Fine Arts. Julien was given free admission by showing his French passport.
Springfield 12/17/11, Staff Photo by John Suchocki - Julien Jacquemard of Burgandy France visited the French Impressionist exhibit "Old Masters to Monet" at the Michelle & Donald D"Amor Museum of Fine Arts. Julien was given free admisson by showing his French passport.
