22 firefighter recruits from across New York State will soon be heading back home to help keep their communities safe.
The firefighter recruits will graduate next Thursday, October 22nd from the New York State Academy of Fire Science in Montour Falls.
"There's two firefighters in the recruit class that are volunteers. The rest are all career firefighters who are brand new, so they're all learning how to become firefighters," says Francis Nerney, New York State Fire Administrator.
Firefighter training began back in August, and with the pandemic still happening, the fire Academy had to make some adjustments, including implementing sanitizer stations throughout the Academy.
"We check our temperatures twice a day for those that are here for 24 hours, so we're monitoring those things. We have all the procedures in place, we have isolation rooms should a recruit firefighter become sick any kind of symptoms we ship them away from everybody else into another area of the building until we figure out where to get them tested," says Nerney.