Hundreds gather in Watertown for South Dakota State Fire Academy

Lina Portman3 weeks ago

0 1 minute read

WATERTOWN, SD (Dakota News Now) – Nearly five hundred professional and volunteer firefighters converged in Watertown for the state's annual fire academy.

The calm before the storm, with a view of a quiet fire school campus early in the morning as nearly five hundred firefighters began to assemble Friday morning at the Watertown Airport Fire Station training center.

More than 30 courses are offered this year. Fire instructor Michael Olson reviewed what is taught at this specific location in Watertown.

“Today in our class we are teaching forcible entry to help our guys learn how to enter a locked door during a structure fire. We teach Primary Search and Victim Clearance, which teaches guys how to quickly search for the occupants of a building and then how to quickly eliminate them once they are found in the safest way. And then basic ground ladders, because ground ladders are essential firefighting tools that we need to be effective with as well,” Michael said.

Other locations will be used in this year's fire school. Charlie Kludt is the president of the South Dakota Firefighters Association.

“This is our second year doing this. We've used Lake Area Tech's campus facilities and the Watertown Fire Training Academy here, and it works great. The Watertown Fire Department and the people of the Lake area are just great to work with in putting this together for us,” Charlie said.

This training began with “Water Battles”. The champion turned out to be the Yankton Fire Department. Michael Olson described the educational value of this event.

“Two things really, one is obviously teamwork. They have to work together as a team of three, and we always carry out tasks and shifts in the field. And then the other thing is pipe line management and nozzle movement, so that helps as well. That’s very valuable, and we’ve found that regardless of the type of training, the more fun you can make it, the more participants learn from it, it seems,” Michael explained.