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Lakeport Fire District Joint Volunteer Firefighter Academy holds graduation Friday
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lakeport Fire District Joint Volunteer Firefighter Academy will honor 10 graduates at a Friday graduation ceremony.
The 10 recruits – five from Lakeport Fire, four from Northshore Fire and one from Kelseyville – completed their academy training last Sunday, according to Andrew Bergem, the academy’s coordinator and a firefighter/EMT for the Lakeport Fire Protection District.
“We made the academy very difficult and demanding of recruits,” said Bergem. “We wanted them to understand and be able to apply everything we expected.”
Graduating volunteers are Josh Armstrong, Kelseyville Fire; Beau Bastian, Lakeport Fire; Tom Beall, Lakeport Fire; Nick Elam, Northshore Fire; Gregory Fricker, Lakeport Fire; Shavona Graham, Northshore Fire; Robert Hopkins, Northshore Fire; Jordan Mills, Lakeport Fire; Miles Monte, Northshore Fire; Sean Thomas, Lakeport Fire.
At the Friday ceremony they will receive certificates of completion. Additional awards for top performance also will be given.
Bergem said the academy was designed to train new volunteer candidates to the firefighter level so they could respond and operate with a basic knowledge and safety on emergency response calls.
He said the academy physically challenged the recruits, requiring them to participate in morning physical fitness exercises that pushed them further mentally and physically than many had ever experienced before – much as they would be challenged on a fire scene.
Recruits had 10 hour days of physically and mentally intense training on the drill ground where they learned everything from building construction to how to throw ladders and apply streams to compartmentalized fires, Bergem said.
The recruits also learned how to operate on a company level, meaning on a fire engine or truck, and a a team member, working together to accomplish an objective, he said.
In addition, the academy included station cleaning duties, academic requirements, hands-on drill ground exercises and core values and their importance in the fire service.
Bergem said he is very proud of all of the recruits.
“We held them to a high standard and each one stepped it up to impress me each and every day,” he said.
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