 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(October 2018) |
The Arkansas Fire Training Academy is the official fire training institution for the state of Arkansas. The main campus is located on the grounds of Southern Arkansas University Tech in Camden, Arkansas, alongside the Arkansas Law Enforcement Training Academy.
The mission of the Arkansas Fire Training Academy is to provide training and certification in fire fighting and related emergency service programs to the Arkansas Fire Service, in accordance with the standards of the National Fire Protection Association. The degree program results in an associates of science degree in Fire and Emergency Response.
Fire training in Arkansas began in 1939 through the Arkansas Fire College in an office in the Old Main Building at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville campus. The first official training publication of the Fire College, titled "Arkansas Fireman", was issued May 15, 1939. The Arkansas Fire College and its monthly training publication were transferred from the University of Arkansas to the Arkansas Fire Prevention Bureau in Little Rock on September 1, 1942. The Arkansas Fire Prevention Bureau was supported by the Arkansas Inspection and Rating Bureau, later to be known as the Insurance Service Office (ISO). From the time of inception in 1939 to the final publication in on December 1, 1969, the monthly publication was written by Carl S. Smalley, the first state fire instructor.
From the beginning in 1939, the fire training was through the Arkansas Fire College. Because there was no physical base from which to work, instructors traveled throughout Arkansas teaching firefighting techniques to individual fire department personnel and through regional fire schools attended by fire departments in central, eastern, and northwestern geographical areas. The regional fire schools became the method that statewide fire training was delivered, and the first regional school was held in Fort Smith on June 19-22, 1939. Approximately 80 firefighters from 8 cities and towns attended with instruction provided by Fort Smith Fire Department Assistant Chiefs John Dixon and Pink Dean and Captains Furner, Williamson, and Borger. Instruction for local fire department training officers was also developed to ensure the continued training of fire fighters, supplemented by the regional training programs.
The Fire Training Academy (as it was originally named) was formally established in 1967 as a training division of the Southwest Technical Institute (later to become Southern Arkansas University Technical Campus).
The administrative offices for the new fire academy were set up in what was once the main fire station of the weapons depot. This building served as the AFTA administrative offices, primary classroom and central training location until Phase I construction at the Camden training site was completed in 1973. The building continued to serve as the administration building until the completion of a new administrative building at the training site in June 2004.
In 1980, the Fire Academy helped coordinate the delivery of extensive training programs offered by the National Fire Prevention and Control Administration (later known as the US Fire Administration) to help curb the unusually high fire death and injury rates in the state. Under a massive agreement, signed by Governor Bill Clinton and US Fire Administrator Gordon Vickery, national fire training materials from the National Fire Academy and initiatives from the Fire Administration's Public Education Office were delivered to the Arkansas Fire Academy for dissemination to local fire departments.
The Lead Instructor of the Arkansas Fire Training Academy was Whit Murphy, for whom the facilities at the Camden Training Site are named.
The Camden Training Site includes the new administration building with theatre style classroom, faculty and staff offices and reception area and a large classroom building with offices, a large two-story burn building, a small single-story, a smoke building, a five-story drill tower, an apparatus building, pumpers, and various training props.
The Academy's main campus in East Camden, Arkansas, was struck by a tornado on October 29, 2009, at approximately 3:50 pm. There were approximately 43 students, and several faculty in the classroom and administration buildings when the storm hit the academy grounds. The tornado, rated EF2 on the Enhanced Fujita scale, destroyed multiple buildings, including the main engine bay and smokehouse, and severely damaged all other facilities, with the exception of the Nix building, the main burn building, and the training tower. Most vehicles were damaged, some being thrown around the grounds, and consequently totaled.
The Academy's main campus is located at Southern Arkansas University Tech in Camden. The Academy also operates campuses at Conway, Jonesboro, Lincoln, and Marshall (the Marshall Campus is closed as of September 2005), as well as Associate Training Centers at Black River Technical College in Pocahontas and at Cossatot Community College in DeQueen.
The Arkansas Fire Training Academy is accredited by the International Fire Service Accreditation Congress (IFSAC) and the National Board on Fire Service Professional Qualifications (NPQS or Pro-Board) to certify personnel to the Firefighter I, Firefighter II, Driver/Operator, Hazardous Materials-Awareness, Hazardous Materials-Operations, Instructor I and Fire Officer I & II levels.
As of 2018, The Arkansas Fire Training Academy offers its services to all Fire Departments in Arkansas, free of charge, regardless if public or private, paid or volunteer. The Academy conducts six "Firefighter Standards" classes a year. Upon completion of each "Standards" class, firefighters are certified in both IFSAC and ProBoard as Firefighter I and II.
The Academy offers a wide range of classes both on and off campus through a network of adjunct instructors. [1]
The Arkansas Fire Training Academy offers medical training at the BLS-level. The Academy offers certification for both Emergency Medical Responder and Emergency Medical Technician.
The Arkansas Department of Health does not recognize any medical provider below the level of Emergency Medical Technician, [2] instead allowing cities and counties to regulate medical first responders. The Arkansas Fire Academy offers six classes each year of "EMS First Responder," which follows the 2011 NREMT model for Emergency Medical Responder. Because the State does not regulate this level of medical responders, the Fire Academy course has become a widely accepted standard in many areas of the state. The Arkansas EMT Association recognizes first responders certified in compliance with the Arkansas Fire Training Academy as medical providers, and has opened membership to those trained under the Arkansas Fire Academy program. [3]
The New York City Fire Department, officially the Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY), is an American department of the government of New York City that provides fire protection, technical rescue services, primary response to biological, chemical, and radioactive hazards, and emergency medical services responses to the five boroughs of New York City.
A certified first responder is a person who has completed a course and received certification in providing pre-hospital care for medical emergencies. Certified individuals should have received much more instruction than someone who is trained in basic first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) but they are not necessarily a substitute for more advanced emergency medical care rendered by emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and paramedics. First responders typically provide advanced first aid level care, CPR, and automated external defibrillator (AED) usage. The term "certified first responder" is not to be confused with "first responder", which is a generic term referring to the first medically trained responder to arrive on scene and medically trained telecommunication operators who provide pre-arrival medical instructions as trained Emergency Medical Dispatchers (EMD). Many police officers and firefighters are required to receive training as certified first responders. Advanced medical care is typically provided by EMS, although some police officers and firefighters also train to become emergency medical technicians or paramedics.
Wake Technical Community College is a public community college in Raleigh, North Carolina. Its first location, Southern Wake Campus, opened in 1963. Wake Tech now operates multiple campuses throughout Wake County. The largest community college in North Carolina, Wake Tech is part of the North Carolina Community College System and is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges.
Westmoreland County Community College is a public community college in Youngwood, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1970 during an era of community college proliferation within the state. Its location on the suburban fringe was designed to attract students from both the Westmoreland County suburbs of Pittsburgh and the Monongahela Valley, then a still booming industrial center. The college has also extended its outreach to provide services to students from Fayette and Indiana Counties.
Bucks County Community College (Bucks) is a public community college in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1964, Bucks has three campuses and online courses: a main campus in Newtown, an "Upper Bucks" campus in the town of Perkasie, and a "Lower Bucks" campus in the town of Bristol. There are also various satellite facilities located throughout the county. The college offers courses via face-to-face classroom-based instruction, eLearning classes offered completely online, and in hybrid (blended) modes that combine face-to-face instruction with online learning. The college is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.
Southern Arkansas University Tech is a public community college in Calhoun County, Arkansas.
Camden County College (CCC) is an American public community college in Camden County, New Jersey. Camden County College has its main campus in the Blackwood section of Gloucester Township, with satellite locations in Camden, Cherry Hill and Sicklerville. The college offers degree programs in Associate in Arts, Associate in Science, and Associate in Applied Science degree programs and certificate programs.
Palm Beach County Fire Rescue is one of the largest ISO Class 1 fire departments in the State of Florida. Palm Beach County Fire Rescue provides full time paid cross trained professional firefighter-EMT’s, or firefighter paramedics to provide, fire protection, Advanced Life Support emergency medical services, technical rescue, hazardous materials mitigation, aircraft rescue and firefighting, fire investigation, and 911 dispatching for unincorporated parts of Palm Beach County, Florida and 19 cities under contract.
The Detroit Fire Department (DFD) provides fire protection and emergency medical services to the U.S. city of Detroit, Michigan.
Advanced emergency medical technicians (AEMT) are providers of prehospital emergency medical services in the United States. A transition to this level of training from the emergency medical technician-intermediate (EMT-I), which have somewhat less training, began in 2013 and has been implemented by most states at this point. The AEMT is not intended to deliver definitive medical care in most cases, but rather to augment prehospital critical care and provide rapid on-scene treatment. AEMTs are most usually employed in ambulance services, working in conjunction with EMTs and paramedics, however are also commonly found in fire departments and law enforcement agencies as non-transporting first responders. Ambulances operating at the AEMT level of care are commonplace in rural areas, and occasionally found in larger cities as part of a tiered-response system, but are overall much less common than EMT- and paramedic-level ambulances. The AEMT provides a low-cost, high-benefit option to provide advanced-level care when the paramedic level of care is not feasible. The AEMT is authorized to provide limited advanced life support, which is beyond the scope of an EMT.
Aims Community College is a public community college serving northern Colorado with locations in Greeley, Windsor, Fort Lupton, and Loveland. Aims has more than 200 degree and certificate programs and provides day and night classes. Founded in Greeley in 1967, Aims graduated its first class in 1969. The school established a second campus in Fort Lupton in 1984, and a third in Loveland in 1987. The Aims Automotive and Technology Center, located in Windsor, opened in January 2010.
Emergency medical responders are people who are specially trained to provide out-of-hospital care in medical emergencies. There are many different types of emergency medical responders, each with different levels of training, ranging from first aid and basic life support. Emergency medical responders have a very limited scope of practice and have the least amount of comprehensive education, clinical experience or clinical skills of emergency medical services (EMS) personnel. The EMR program is not intended to replace the roles of emergency medical technicians or paramedics and their wide range of specialties. Emergency medical responders typically assist in rural regions providing basic life support where pre-hospital health professionals are not available due to limited resources or infrastructure.
Emergency medical services in Sri Lanka is being established using a public/private system aimed at the provision of emergency ambulance service, including emergency care and transportation to hospitals. The Pre-Hospital Care Committee is part of the Trauma Secretariat of the Sri Lanka Ministry of Healthcare and Nutrition and was established following the 2004 tsunami. The goal of the Pre-Hospital Care Sub-Committee is “During this generation and continuing for future generations, everyone in Sri Lanka will have access to trained pre-hospital medical personnel, ambulances are available to transport the sick and injured safely to hospitals, complications from harmful or inadequate pre-hospital care is eliminated so physician and nursing personnel at hospitals are delivered patients they are able to professionally treat and rehabilitate back to society as contributing citizens.” Pre-Hospital care is an essential, core component of trauma system.
The National Fire Academy (NFA) is one of two schools in the United States operated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) at the National Emergency Training Center (NETC) in Emmitsburg, Maryland. Operated and governed by the United States Fire Administration (USFA) as part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the NFA is the country’s pre-eminent federal fire training and education institution. The original purpose of the NFA as detailed in a 1973 report to Congress was to “function as the core of the Nation’s efforts in fire service education—feeding out model programs, curricula, and information…”
The School of Fire Protection and Safety at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma has been home to one of the few fire protection programs in the North America since its creation in 1937.
The Rutgers University Police Department (RUPD) is a campus police agency responsible for law enforcement on the New Brunswick, Newark, and Camden campuses of Rutgers University. RUPD is a department of the university's Division of Administration and Public Safety, overseen by Rutgers Institutional Planning and Operations (IP&O) which also houses Rutgers University Emergency Services (RUES) which is responsible for Emergency Medical Services and emergency management on the campus as well as responding to fire and hazardous materials emergencies in coordination with local first responders. The Division of Administration and Public Safety also oversees the campus bus system, the Rutgers Golf Course, and other services on campus.
Capital City Fire/Rescue (CCFR) provides fire suppression and emergency medical services to the city of Juneau, Alaska, United States.
The Arkansas Law Enforcement Training Academy (ALETA) is the flagship law enforcement training facility in the U.S. state of Arkansas. Operated by the Arkansas Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and Training, ALETA provides training to all law enforcement agencies in Arkansas free-of-charge.
William 'Will' R. Smith, is an emergency physician and wilderness medicine consultant who lectures about integrating combat medicine into wilderness rescues around the world. He started Wilderness & Emergency Medicine Consulting, a company that helps people with pre-trip planning, online medical support, travel medicine in remote areas and provides expert witness testimony in court cases related to wilderness medicine. As medical director for the National Park Service, he oversaw the largest rescue event ever to occur in Grand Teton National Park. He lives in Jackson, Wyoming where he is an emergency medicine physician at St. John’s Medical Center.