Great feats require training, training… and more training

Many of us have been watching the Olympic Games in Paris, seeing stories about how many hours of training go into making it to the Games. Just like an athlete, firefighters and paramedics must train regularly and hone critical skills. If you don’t practice, you can’t get better. And in our line of work, if we don’t practice, we could get hurt – or worse.

The Boulder City Fire Department responds to various emergencies: health conditions, hiking mishaps, car accidents, boat fires and more. Calls come from all sorts of terrain, covering about 215 square miles of land. We needed a professional area where crews could train safely, consistently and with tools that are in accordance with the national standard. Recently, we started utilizing a new training facility right next to our Fire Department on Elm Street.

Going live

Part of our new training tower allows for “class A” material live fire training. Before this spring, the closest was located in North Las Vegas, which meant crews would pack up all their gear and drive about an hour to the facility. Packing and the commute back and forth could take up to four hours.

By holding our trainings here, we can eliminate some of the overtime costs, keep our first responders close in case of an emergency, and allow us to train more frequently.

The Fire Department is also investing in training in our community. We have in-depth public education programs, hands-on classroom courses and more. We’re offering a CPR class at least four times a year, “Stop the Bleed” and first-aid trainings, child and babysitting safety, and recently started a fire extinguisher class.

I highly recommend the CPR course for our community: It could take first responders several minutes to arrive on the scene of an emergency. How you respond in that first six minutes of an emergency is critical to saving a life. We also regularly provide pertinent and timely safety information via social media platforms Facebook and Nextdoor.

In March 2023, we received International Accreditation from the Commission on Fire Accreditation International (CFAI) through the Center for Public Safety Excellence (CPSE). Fewer than 350 agencies worldwide have this accreditation. CFAI is dedicated to assisting the fire and emergency service agencies throughout the world in achieving excellence through self-assessment and accreditation to provide continuous quality improvement and the enhancement of service delivery to their communities. The CFAI process is voluntary and provides us with an improvement model to assess our service delivery and performance internally. We then work with a team of peers from other agencies to evaluate our completed self-assessment. Once you achieve the commission’s accreditation, you just keep going - always looking to improve your services and to do our best to serve the community.

About four years ago, we wanted to recognize our responders who do so much, not only in the department, but also for the community. Being able to recognize them at some level was important, so we held a small awards ceremony. Over time, it has grown from just us, to include the police department, dispatch and the courts.

This year, several dozen Boulder City employees were recognized for their efforts. It was a touching ceremony, punctuated by a call-out: several firefighters and paramedics had to leave during the ceremony to respond to an emergency.

We’re all a big family in the First Response field. I get emotional about that. Our motivation isn’t about podiums or medals; we are motivated to protect and serve. The work we do keeps our residents healthy and safe. I love what our first responders do.