Teens to Fight Flames during Firefighter Camp at WVU Jackson’s Mill

“Put the wet stuff on the red stuff.” That’s what firefighters tell their trainees to do.

And that’s what eager West Virginia teens will experience during the first West Virginia Junior Firefighter Camp from Aug. 12 through Aug, 15 at WVU Jackson’s Mill State 4-H Camp, near Weston.

About 75 boys and girls ranging in age from 14 to 17 years old will arrive at WVU Jackson’s Mill ready to experience firefighting and emergency operations techniques.

While they are living their dreams, they will also be learning leadership, science, engineering and technology skills, according to Murrey Loflin, director of Fire Service Extension at West Virginia University.

Loflin said that the camp’s sponsors want to nurture youths’ “interest in becoming long-term members of emergency services.”

When teens turn 18 years old, they can begin training to be volunteer or professional firefighters. Until then, Loflin said, youths can stay connected to and support their local fire service by providing “departments with additional help in accomplishing non-firefighting or non-emergency tasks.”

But for four days in August, the “junior” firefighters will walk the training path of “real” firefighters.

Firefighting teens will “put the wet stuff” on real “red stuff” when they enter the two-story, 53-foot-long Mobile Fire Training Unit operated by West Virginia University Fire Service Extension. The youths will be challenged by the sights, sounds, and obstacles of commercial and residential structural fires. The junior fire fighters will have an opportunity to work with WVU Fire Service Extension’s Mobile Aircraft Fire Training Unit as well.

While trying to “save lives and property” in the mobile fire unit, the teens will have a live-fire opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned about personal protective equipment, forcible entry, self-contained breathing apparatus, ventilation, fire apparatus and other firefighting and emergency operations.

Regardless of age, all trainees who enter the Mobile Fire Training Unit are safe, Loflin said. The system is controlled from an observation room by a lead instructor who can shut down the operations and ventilate the unit’s interior within 45 to 60 seconds.

The junior firefighters will bring their own personal safety equipment, including nationally certified “self-contained breathing apparatus with facepiece” and “compliant turnout gear” (helmet, hood, coat, pants, gloves, and boots).

“Safety is the number-one priority of the camp, followed by education and fun,” said Steve Bonanno, director of WVU Extension’s Community, Economic and Workforce Development programs.

Bonanno and Loflin will be among the many WVU Extension Service faculty staffing the new camp.

Others include faculty from WVU Extension’s 4-H Youth Development Program, who bring WVU’s nationally recognized 4-H camping principles to the firefighting curriculum.

Besides WVU Extension, camp sponsors are the W.Va. Professional Fire Chiefs Association, Professional Firefighters of West Virginia, W.Va. State Fire Chiefs Association, W.Va. State Fire Commission and W.Va. Regional Education Service Agency.

Contacts:

Murrey Loflin
WVU Fire Service Extension
Office: 1-866-WVU-Fire
Cell: (304) 276-2843

Ann Bailey Berry
WVU Extension Communications
Office: (304) 293-5691