Arizona Wildfire Academy "Always Remember"
 The 11th annual Wildfire Academy has come to a close. It was another successful year with over 550 students coming from all over Arizona, plus 20 other states and Australia! The word is out about the premier training venue in the southwest! We offered over 40 classes from the basic Firefighter II to Public Information Officer and being an Operations Section Chief.
Our Academy is run as a real incident with a complete Incident Management Team conducting briefings in the morning; the Planning Section facilitating planning meetings, producing Incident Action Plans and keeping track of all overhead (Students, instructors, staff…), the Operations Section making sure the classes all run smoothly, and the Logistics Section providing all the support needs from markers to buses complete with inspections. Safety Officers monitoring all activities, Public Information Officers getting the word out to the public and working with any VIP’s that come to campus – all coordinated by an Incident Commander.
Our theme for the academy this year was "Always Remember." We were reminded to be a "student of fire" by the teachings Paul Gleason the initiator of LCES (Lookouts, Communication, Escape Routes and Safety Zones) which is a basic yet vital part of not only wildfire but life. The Wildfire Lessons Learned Center was there to talk to the classes and at briefings every morning. Please make sure you check-out their website - daily for their 6 minutes of Safety.
We are already working towards next year’s academy to be held March 8 – 14, 2014. Registration will begin November 1, 2013. Come back to this page and look for the "register" button. Hope to see you there. | 
