Fox Cities fire departments have added a new town to its unique way to train its recruits and created better-trained firefighters.
Kevin KloehNeenah-Menasha Fire Chief says, “The fire chiefs in the Fox Valley, we came up with this plan to see what it would be like to try and do more things together because we do respond together in mutual aid calls.”
Now, Grand Chute joins firefighter recruits from Neenah, Menasha and Oshkosh in its recruit academy.
Chad Korth, a firefighter recruit says, “It’s nice to have different groups kind of sharing different teaching abilities to get new skills.” So combining recruit academies provides consistent training and life-saving muscle memory drills.
Chief Kloehn says, “Each department would do their own recruit class. Sometimes it was a week long. Sometimes it was three weeks long and then they’d get online and they couldn’t remember how to, you know, for instance, load the hose correctly back on the truck.”