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2020 Annual Report • Fire Department • St. Anthony Village, Minnesota <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />28 | Page <br /> <br />ROOKIE TRAINING 2020 <br />By Captain Joe Basara <br />This past year has been a tough one for many people. 2020 threw a lot of <br />curveballs at us and yet we still came out being able to finish up another <br />rookie class. This past year we had four new hires and were able to complete <br />their training, maybe a bit longer than normal but they are done and will be <br />sworn in as paid on call firefighters. The process has not changed much for <br />the rookie training this year other than a few tweaks here and there to refine <br />their training. The four rookies started their firefighter journey in the early <br />months of 2019 going through the hiring process and by October of 2019 they <br />were hired on to the fire department. <br />The start of training begins with getting familiar with the equipment we use <br />and wear. The rookies are issued a set of turnout gear which consists of boots, pants, jacket, <br />gloves, helmet, face piece and hood. Throughout their training we have them get dressed with <br />their turnout gear multiple times over and over again. This not only gets them familiar with the <br />gear but also allows us to act quickly on emergency scenes. A lot of what we do is all about <br />repetition and muscle memory. Once they become comfortable with the gear we introduce <br />SCBA’s (self-contained breathing apparatus). These are what we wear on our back to breathe <br />clean air in a hazardous environment. The rookies then incorporate the SCBA in with their gear <br />and we set a goal of being able to get everything on including going on air in under two <br />minutes. These skills are practiced numerous times throughout their <br />training to establish that muscle memory. <br />We continue to work on various other items after becoming <br />comfortable with the gear. All of our vehicles carry an abundance of <br />equipment. Each firefighter is expected to know where each piece is <br />located and on what truck a specific piece of equipment is. Each truck <br />has certain pieces of equipment that can be used for various tasks. <br />With knowing exactly where these pieces of equipment are helps with <br />completing an objective in a timely fashion and not having to walk all <br />around the truck looking in each compartment. Once each rookies tests out on equipment <br />locations they receive a pager. With this pager they are able to come back to calls and assist with <br />fire department operations.