Hillsborough County youth fire academy works to build future workforce
TAMPA, Fla. - The Hillsborough County Fire Rescue Foundation’s Alan D. Anderson Summer Youth Fire Academy is giving 35 local teenagers hands-on experience during a two-week program in June.
The summer program wraps up with graduation on Thursday.
Training future first responders
What we know:
The competitive program selected 35 cadets from over 150 applicants to experience the daily grind of fire service training.
On Tuesday, teenagers, ages 14 to 18, practiced responding to house fire scenarios at Hillsborough County Fire Rescue Headquarters. They practiced putting on all the gear, pulling hoses, spraying water, and breaching doors to look for fire victims.
"Honestly, the hoses, those things get heavy and get heavy really quick!" cadet Allison Berg, 15, told FOX 13.
Another cadet, 16-year-old Julian Gonzalez, said that being a firefighter has been his dream since he was three or four years old.
"It's a lot harder than a lot of people would think, definitely," Gonzalez said of Tuesday's training. "But if you are willing to put in the teamwork and the work, it's possible for anybody."
The Summer Youth Academy does not use live fire, but that could be in the teens’ future one day.
"Yeah, I'm definitely still going to take this path," Berg said of a firefighting career. "I'm enjoying it even more after taking this camp."
Workforce recruitment challenges
Why you should care:
The cadets are learning from an instructor who knows exactly what it’s like to be on the other side.
"Once I went through this program, that's what sealed the deal for me," HCFR fire medic and Summer Youth Fire Academy instructor Lauren Vincent said.
And this is the pipeline county fire officials love to see: From Summer Youth Academy to Hillsborough County Fire Rescue.
"HCFR, we are almost at full staffing," HCFR deputy planning chief and cadet program administrator Norman Brown said. "However, recruiting for the fire service as a whole is down."
It’s why hands-on summer programs like this one are so important, he added.
"Obviously, now, age of technology, kids, their focus has shifted a little bit. So we're doing -- where you put hands-on, things like this outside -- that interest not necessarily has gone away, but it's diminished a little bit. So that's the reason again with academy where we capture them at a young age. So that even if they do have those technological interests, they can now hone those skills along with the fire skills and then bring those talents to the fire service to help us innovate and move forward in the fire service," Brown explained.
The Source: The information in this story was gathered from interviews with Hillsborough County Fire Rescue cadets and instructors, as well as FOX 13 reporting from the Hillsborough County Fire Rescue Foundation’s Alan D. Anderson Summer Youth Fire Academy.