Con Fire Academy 55: 1st Group Trained Entirely During A Pandemic

CONCORD, CA — Contra Costa County Fire Protection District announced the graduation this week of Fire Recruit Academy 55, which adds five new probationary firefighter-paramedics to the district's ranks.

The members of Academy 55 are the first in Con Fire's history for whom training was conducted entirely during a pandemic, which meant there were significant challenges related to requirements for social distancing, health monitoring and protective equipment.

The already experienced firefighters joined Con Fire three months ago from their assignments at other well-respected fire jurisdictions, according to Con Fire Spokesman Steve Hill.

"As firefighter-paramedics, they now join and bolster the District’s paramedic ranks supporting its Advanced Life Support —ALS — status with paramedic staffing on every apparatus, Hill said.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the graduation ceremony was virtual except for a limited number of family members and was held at Con Fire’s training grounds in Concord. Each graduate was "pinned" with their firefighterbadge and sworn in as a probationary firefighter-paramedic.

"I’m especially pleased to welcome this accomplished group of five new firefighter-paramedics who chose to join Con Fire from assignments in other fire jurisdictions," said Con Fire Chief Lewis Broschard. "After their just-completed rigorous fire recruit academy training program they are exceptionally well prepared to step into new roles later next week as probationary firefighter-paramedics in fire stations across our District."

The graduating recruits underwent a physically and mentally challenging 12-week course of instruction using the latest firefighting and training techniques. In addition to basic structure firefighting techniques, recruits honed wildland fire, rescue, automobile extrication, hazardous materials and other techniques they can be expected to put to use in their first assignments.

Immediately prior to graduation, the recruits participated in the traditional end-of-academy "crucible" exercise, a realistic 48-hour period designed to replicate what they will soon face in actual shifts in their assignments as Con Fire probationary firefighters. The crucible exercise included numerous simulated incident responses and concluded with deployment to a training wildfire fire atop Mt. Diablo's Eagle Peak, which required a 6-plus mile hike in full wildland fire gear.

"As members of this lateral academy, we sought out Con Fire because we wanted more, wewanted to be the best," Probationary Firefighter-Paramedic Matthew Pagan said. "We have worked hard, trained hard and studied hard to get to today and that is why we came to Con Fire;we wanted tougher, we wanted stronger and we wanted it to be challenging."