By James B. Bartle
On a snowy, cold day off from school, most area children would be sledding down a hill, building a snowman, playing video games or spending time on the Internet; but for 12 members of the Sullivan Junior Fire Department, they chose to have fire education training on a structure fire.
“Our junior firefighters were wanting to do some type of training since they were off from school,” said Cory Rice, Junior Fire Department advisor. “We have been wanting to do a video for the junior firefighters for training and for a career in education video to take to schools; thus, we were able to complete a number of things on Feb. 12th with the junior training.”
According to Rice, the department was allowed to use a rental home owned by Steve Thurmond and setup a training in structure fires for the junior firefighters. Live fire was not used; however, the junior firefighters setup all equipment for a live fire and went through the steps of a fire scene, a fog machine was used to simulate a fire and the steps were shown for doing a search of a home and rescue. While the juniors were going through their training, a film of the event was taken for the department training and educational video.
“Our juniors are only allowed to do so much in a fire scene, but this training gave them a lot to look forward to and advance their training,” said Rice. “The training allowed them to use their basic skills such as setting up ladders, setting up fans, hose lines, all the pieces to the puzzle of setting up to battle a structure fire. This also gave the juniors a moral boost for what they will see in a real live event.”
Rice stated that the Junior Department has really taken off over the last couple of years and that they are seeing 100 percent turnout from the junior firefighters. The group is also assigned to help take care of Station One, which includes not only checking the fire apparatus each week and equipment with senior firefighters to help maintain House One.
“Our juniors have also helped to staff Station One during the weekends and during some of the evenings,” said Rice. “Our juniors must maintain at least a 2.0 grade point average.”
Rice stated that the Junior program recently conducted interviews for their positions on the department and new members are still being sought and also go through an interview process.
“Kyle Arnold was recently appointed Junior Fire Chief and Nick White, Assistant Chief,” said Rice. “We had each one of the juniors interview for the position just like they would for a job. We felt that this not only would give them an advantage later in life when they apply for a job, but also let them see what they will be questioned on in the future.”
Presently, between funding from Missouri Baptist Sullivan Hospital and from the Fire District, those juniors who complete the Junior program and graduate high school to pursue a career in EMS and the fire service are assisted in educational funding.
“We have a junior this year that will be going to EMT school and we’re pleased that we will be able to assist with the education costs,” said Rice.
The fourth annual Sullivan Fire District Junior Fire School is scheduled for the week of July 14-18. The week-long summer fire school for the junior firefighters not only brought in Sullivan junior firefighters last year, but junior firefighters from eight other departments. The school provides 40 hours of fire service training to the students and is a scaled down version of the adult Missouri Fire Service Firefighter One and Two training.
The Junior Department is led by senior firefighters Cory Rice, Marko Turner, Jimmy Smythe, Nolan Crawford and Bill Windham.
Anyone interested in becoming a Junior Firefighter may contact Sullivan Fire District Station One at 573-468-6161.