Digging ditches. That’s what it looked like out on the prairie around Rainier on Monday, June 24, as men and women from all walks of life came together under one common name: firefighter.
There wasn’t an actual fire on the prairie — just 450 firefighters of varying degrees of experience, learning new skills or honing old ones as part of the Western Washington Interagency Wildfire Training Academy.
“The purpose of the training academy is to come together and train all of our new firefighters, and our returning seasonal and permanent wildfire staff, to be able to have a successful season fighting fires and managing incidents,” said Dakota Truitt, public information officer for Western Washington Interagency Wildfire Training Academy, which made Rainier High School its western headquarters.