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Contact Information Date
For Immediate Release
Contact: Rich Reuse 804.840.2042 | John Campbell 434.220.9070		 May 29, 2009
VDOF 09020

Firefighters Gear Up For Week-Long Wildland Fire Academy

More than 265 volunteer and paid firefighters from 70 departments across the Commonwealth and seven other states will head to Longwood University (Farmville, Va.) early next week to take part in a training program that will better prepare them for the challenges associated with fighting wildland fires.

The Virginia Wildland Fire Academy is a week-long program offering both hands-on and classroom instruction on a variety of skills used in suppressing fires in forests and fields. The Virginia Department of Forestry (VDOF) coordinates the Academy and receives financial support for the program through a grant from the National Park Service.

“Most of the firefighters who will be participating in the Fire Academy have been trained in fighting structural fires, which are very different than those they encounter in the wildland,” said John Miller, VDOF’s director of resource protection. “Both are very dangerous situations, but the fire’s size, scope and tools are vastly different. The Virginia Wildland Fire Academy provides the knowledge, skills and experience firefighters need to protect life and property while successfully suppressing a wildland fire.”

A total of 16 classes – ranging from basic firefighting and tactics to incident command, aerial operations and fireplow operations – will be taught during the week-long program. Many of the classes are a mix of classroom instruction and field activities, while a few are classroom-instruction only. Two of the most experiential learning experiences are the power saw class, in which firefighters are trained how to safely and correctly fell trees during a fire, and the fireplow operations class, in which the firefighters must successfully suppress a live night-time wildland fire using only their fireplows.

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Note to Editors and Reporters: An Excel spreadsheet is attached that lists each VFD who received a grant this year and the amount of that grant.

The Virginia Department of Forestry protects and develops healthy, sustainable forest resources for Virginians. Headquartered in Charlottesville, the Agency has forestry staff members assigned to every county to provide service to citizens of the Commonwealth. VDOF is an equal opportunity provider.

With nearly 16 million acres of forest land and more than 144,000 Virginians employed in forestry, forest products and related industries, Virginia forests provide more than $27.5 Billion annually in benefits to the Commonwealth.

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