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National Fire Plan Success Story

11th Virginia Interagency Wildland Fire Academy
Virginia Department of Forestry and National Park Service Northeast Region, Virginia
National Fire Plan - Firefighting
2011

Briefing of students prior to start of classes.
Each day at the Academy starts with the briefing, just as it would on a wildland fire. Photo by Virginia Department of Forestry.

Two men, an instructor and student practicing chainsaw use techniques.
Hands-on training for sawyers. Photo by Virginia Department of Forestry.

More than 300 firefighters from Virginia and neighboring states took part in a variety of courses designed to better prepare them for the challenges and dangers associated with suppressing wildfires. The weeklong program began May 31 at the annual Virginia Interagency Wildland Fire Academy at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia.

While many of the courses are classroom based, several involve fieldwork. These include the chainsaw operations course, where participants learn how to properly fell trees during a wildfire, and the bulldozer/fireplow course, where participants operate these pieces of heavy equipment over and through a variety of obstacles they will encounter in the woods. The “students” in this course also attack and suppress a real wildfire at night as part of the program using only their bulldozer/fireplows.

John Miller, Virginia Department of Forestry’s (VDOF) director of resource protection, said, “We rely on partnerships with volunteer and career fire departments along with a cadre of ‘as-needed’ wildland firefighters across Virginia to effectively and efficiently suppress wildland fires in the Commonwealth. Our Wildland Fire Academy is the one place where we can bring together first responders and teach them the latest in wildfire suppression techniques.”

Funding for the Virginia Wildland Fire Academy is provided by the National Fire Plan Ready Reserve Program through the National Park Service and from the USDA Forest Service. This year’s class includes people from the VDOF; 116 individuals from volunteer fire departments and career fire departments in Virginia; the National Park Service; the USDA Forest Service; the US Fish and Wildlife Service; the Virginia Department of Fire Programs; the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation; Virginia Tech; the Virginia Master Naturalist program; the National Weather Service; the Maryland Department of Natural Resources; the Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry; the Kentucky Division of Forestry; and The Nature Conservancy. The 17 people from out of state came from Kentucky, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Ohio.

Contact: John W. Campbell, Virginia Department of Forestry and Barb Stewart, National Park Service; (434) 220-9070