Training Chief
Training Captain
The goal of the Training Division is to give our career and volunteer firefighters the highest quality training, education, and information possible so they can provide this service to the citizens of our communities. Our duty is to ensure our firefighters possess the essential skills and abilities to safely and effectively deal with any situation they might encounter.
Maple Valley firefighters are continuously training to achieve the excellence that is required in this dangerous and demanding profession. This training consists of fire hose, personal protective equipment, ladders, operating fire engines, water supply, ventilation, vehicle extrication, forcible entry, fire behavior, building construction, and so on. To make sure our fire fighters get the necessary training, the Training Division coordinates all of the quarterly and annual training required by the State of Washington (WAC 296-305).
The Training Division also oversees our new fire fighters during their year long probationary period. During this time the fire fighter is given daily on the job training from their company officer and their performance is evaluated each month by their Battalion Chief and the Training Officers.
In addition to fire training, all of our fire fighters are Washington State certified Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT’s). This requires additional training in both state and our local King County Patient Care Protocols. The King County Medic One system is known throughout the world as the best of its kind and holds its EMT’s and Paramedics to a very high standard. Our EMT’s maintain their skills through several different sources including interactive training from the King County EMS Online website, competency based training through in-house instructors, and various classes and lectures given by local paramedics and physicians.
When we schedule a recruit academy, we review our applications and send out invitations to our oral interview. Those applicants that receive a passing score in the oral board are then scheduled for a physical agility test and a medical exam. The last step before training begins is to issue personal protective equipment (bunker gear).
Volunteer training lasts approximately 15 to 17 weeks and meets all of the minimum state requirements to become a firefighter plus additional training in vehicle extrication, wildland firefighting, and driving emergency vehicles.
At the conclusion of the volunteer recruit training you are assigned to one of three rotating shifts of firefighters. We ask our volunteers to pull at least 7 shifts per month. Shifts are approximately from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. with some flexibility allowed for personal work schedules. Volunteers will either be assigned to a station with career firefighters or at one of three all volunteer fire stations. Your roles and responsibilities will include responding to emergency incidents, keeping the station and the apparatus ready for the next incident, and continuing your firefighter and EMS training.
Maple Valley Fire & Life Safety also requires all of our firefighters to become an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT). This class is provided through King County EMS and is 120 hours of classroom and practical work with 10 hours of hospital observation time.
Volunteer Application
The Training Division is always looking for structures that we can use for training. Sometimes they can be used for live fire training, but not very often. Contact either the Training Chief or the Training Lieutenant and we will come out and determine if there is “training value” to the structure and then look at the feasibility of either burning or performing destructive training.
Most structures are used for destructive training. A few examples of destructive training include cutting ventilation holes in roofs, forcing open locked doors, breaking windows to vent a room, or cutting walls to gain access to trapped firefighters. Occasionally we will use materials to build a maze or some type of prop to imitate a specific situation that we want our firefighters to get additional training on.