Students gear up for second semester of Wildland Fire training at Reedley College

REEDLEY, Calif. (KFSN) -- Future firefighters are backmost successful people astatine Reedley College.

The students from each walks of beingness are gearing up for their 2nd semester successful the Wildland Fire program.

"It's a batch of knowledge, a batch of learning and a batch of carnal capabilities," pupil Priscilla Barrera said.

She is the sole pistillate successful the antheral dominated class.

She gladly accepts the unit that comes on with it due to the fact that the vocation aligns with her.

"I similar being outside. I similar being outdoors. I similar camping each the time. I similar fishing, truthful I was similar this is my job, this is going to beryllium the occupation for me," Barrera said.

She says erstwhile it comes to moving with her chap classmates connected the beforehand lines, there's nary quality betwixt them.

"There's nary similar jealousy, oregon animosity oregon anything. I'm fundamentally 1 of them," Barrera.

Instructor Samuel Escutia says the people is breached into semesters.

The archetypal semester, students enactment connected wildland occurrence and fuels management.

Then the 2nd semester, which the students are successful now, it's each astir the fundamentals.

"It goes from operating chainsaws, attraction connected chainsaws, operations connected portable pumps, attraction of portable pumps," Escutia said.

He's designed the people to beryllium arsenic adjacent to the real-world arsenic possible.

The students are dressed successful uniforms and transportation 45-pound backpacks, each portion getting hands-on training.

The extremity is to physique their skills good capable that they onshore their archetypal job.

"Get those basal small skills conscionable to adhd a batch of bully worldly to a resume that a batch of employers are seeking," Escutia said.

Once they onshore a job, students instrumentality aft their archetypal occurrence play to implicit their certifications and tin gain an associate's grade successful wildland fire.

Kurt Johnson joined the people aft leaving years of operation work.

"I would accidental coming into here. I didn't cognize what I was getting myself into. I cognize that initially, it sounded cool," Johnson.

But now, arsenic a azygous begetter of 2 boys, he's looking guardant to what his aboriginal tin beryllium successful wildland firefighting.

"It opened up a full antithetic satellite that I didn't cognize existed," Johnson said.

If you'd similar to larn much astir Reedley College's wildland occurrence program, click here.

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