Choffin cadets learn to fight fires from the pros

By DENISE DICK

denise_dick@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Choffin Fire Training

Video

A new program at Choffin Career and Technical Center teaches students fire fighting skills and techniques while aiming to increase the number of Youngstown residents in the fire department ranks. Kristy Olinik, Choffin public safety instructor, said the center started the class because of demand. This marks its first year.

A new program at Choffin Career and Technical Center teaches students firefighting skills and techniques while aiming to increase the number of Youngstown residents in the fire department ranks.

Kristy Olinik, Choffin public safety instructor, said the center started the class because of demand. This marks its first year.

All course instructors are city firefighters, and the program is under the charter of the department’s fire academy.

“The Youngstown Fire Department Fire Academy has the same class except it’s adult education,” said Capt. Jim Sapp, an instructor for the Choffin course and a city firefighter.

The adult version also provides more hours as its students attend class 40 hours per week for seven weeks. The high school students take the class a few hours per day.

Upon graduation, the high schoolers must take a test to earn firefighter certification.

The Choffin class starts with information about types of architecture, continues to equipment basics and techniques employed to battle various types of blazes.

“We’re hoping to finish the year with a controlled burn,” Sapp said.

Olinik secured $125,000 worth of air packs, masks and harnesses for the students by writing a letter to Scott Safety, a fire equipment company in North Carolina. Because turnout gear — boots, pants, coats, helmets — must be individually sized, the school rents rather than buys that equipment.

One day last week Sapp and Lt. Fred Beehler guided students as they connected the hose nozzle to a fire truck, snaked it down the hallway and into a classroom in a simulation of firefighters battling a blaze.

“Remember you have to be down low, crawl or duck walk down the hall,” Sapp instructed.

As a fire burns, not only does the heat rise, limiting oxygen supply at higher levels, but visibility is better closer to the ground as well, he said.

Students, wearing the requisite equipment, followed his direction, walking on their knees, lugging the hose.

Beehler demonstrated how to aim the fire hose up to attack the flames.

Five seniors, Kristen Bowman, Makala Shultz, Rickia Alli, Dionshay Taylor and Christopher Stevens, are enrolled in the course. Each leans toward a criminal justice career but said they’re learning a lot in the firefighter course.

“I learned how they risk their lives to become firefighters,” Kristen said.

Makala said she never knew there were so many ways to raise a ladder, each one tailored to the situation.

Besides offering young people an opportunity to learn a career, city officials hope it helps recruit city residents into the ranks of the fire department.

Chief John J. O’Neill Jr. said Marcia Harris, chief fire department inspector, is the department’s lead recruiter, going to organizations within the city trying to recruit city residents to become firefighters.

“She has worked tirelessly to make that happen,” he said.

Still, building lists of applicants that include significant city representation has been a struggle, O’Neill said.

Harris said she, O’Neill and two new firefighters went to Chaney High School last week to talk to students

“We were asking questions and talking about the job and when we asked if anyone was interested in becoming a firefighter, out of 12, not one single hand went up,” she said.

Firefighters who try to recruit gather students’ names and phone numbers and even give out their own numbers in case students have questions, Harris said.

“We don’t get any feedback,” she said. “It’s a struggle.”

O’Neill said even when many residents sign up to take the list, the result is the same.

“We’ll end up having decent sign-ups for the [firefighter civil service] test,” the chief said. “Then we have the test and the percentage drops off because some don’t show up to take the test. Then we have the pass/fail and some drop off there and some don’t show up for the physical fitness test. By the time all of that happens, we don’t have a representative list.”

A list with a significant number of city residents would be representative of city demographics too.

The fire department had been considering some type of program to address the

issue, but it wasn’t getting traction.

“Choffin approached us and this actually works better,” O’Neill said. “We have kids that are becoming career-minded and we’re giving them not just the idea for what the job is about but educating them so that when they come out of high school, they can hit the ground running.”

It’s a good marriage between the department and the school, he said.

The department is looking for firefighters with a passion for the job.

“There’s a big difference between getting people to take the test and getting young people to get interested in being a firefighter who know the dangers, who want to help people, who will do anything to be a firefighter. That’s the person we’re after. It’s been a struggle to find people from the city to do that.”