FSA Upcoming Tradeshow Schedule:

FireShow Reno, Reno, NV Oct. 24-26, 2011 Joint Western Region Mine Safety and Health Conference Henderson, NV Oct. 24-26, 2011 Health & Safety Conf and Trade Show, May 1-2 2012, Mississauga, Ontario

The View from the Tower Oct 2011 Volume 1, Issue 7 www.fireacademy.unr.edu

FSA CONDUCTS TRAINING NEEDS SURVEY

Don’t Delay These classes will be coming up for enrollment review. Make sure you get your enrollments in: Nov 1-4: Entry Level Industrial Firefighter Nov 1-4: Industrial Fire Brigade Leader Nov 15-18: Advanced Exterior Industrial Firefighter

In a recent email survey, we asked for opinions and suggestions regarding curriculum, services offered, and facilities. Our goal was to better understand how current open enrollment course offerings meet the specific training needs of our client base, additional courses we should consider adding to help meet current or anticipated needs, the perception of our instructors and staff, and finally the preferences of our client base regarding equipment available for use at the FSA and our overall facility. The survey was sent to a random sample of our overall client base. First, thank you to all who participated in the survey. We received some great feedback and ideas covering all aspects of our operations. The FSA team is currently reviewing the results of the survey and discussing the best steps to take to incorporate the information into our current and future plans. Here are some highlights of the responses received:

• Open Enrollment Course Offerings: The survey results show a strong need and support for the majority of the current courses offered. The top percentage of needed courses included all of the industrial fire fighting courses, the rope and confined space courses, incident command and emergency response, and hazmat on-scene incident commander. In addition, there is strong interest in the NFPA 1081 course offerings that start in early 2012, with 54% indicating an interest in one of the three training options the FSA will present (additional information on the options available starting in April of 2012 will be included in the November FSA newsletter.)

Continued on page 2

Page | 1

NEW EQUIPMENT UPDATE AT THE FSA!

Continued from page 1 • Future Course Offerings: 50% or more of the respondents expressed an interest in having an

advanced rope rescue, advanced confined space rescue, and a fire apparatus driver/operator pump training course added to the FSA open enrollment schedule in the near future. Additionally, 50% of the respondents expressed interest in adding a regional foam school to our training calendar. Additional NFPA 1081 course offerings also received support, with 46% of the respondents indicating an interest in adding the NFPA 1081 – Fire Brigade Leadership and 42% indicating interest in adding the NFPA 1081 – Industrial Interior Fire Fighting courses to our offerings. Other course suggestions provided by respondents included WMD for HazMat technicians, storage tank emergencies, and pipeline emergencies.

• FSA Staff of Instructors: FSA instructors received high marks from the respondents, with over 93% finding the staff “acceptable” and over 60% identifying the staff as “best in the business” when compared to other training facilities.

• Equipment and Facilities: Multiple respondents provided suggestions on how to improve our overall facilities and operations. Sample suggestions include adding a fixed first-aid station to the training field, adding “dry boxes” to each prop where students can store cameras and other personnel items they do not want in their pockets, adding a communication/web board to the FSA Web site to allow small groups to explore possible partnering opportunities to meet minimum class requirements, and to continue upgrading the prop pads in a similar fashion to the upgrades recently made to the pump row fire prop.

If anyone has additional feedback or suggestions they would like to provide regarding our course offerings, staff, facilities and equipment, please email your suggestions to fireacademy@unr.edu. This additional feedback will be added to the information received from our survey. Thank you to everyone for your continued support of the FSA.

Eighty new sets of Fyrepel OSX 1000 turnouts will soon be available for students to rent at the FSA. Fyrepel, a division of Lakeland, has over 100 years of service to the Fire Industry and is used worldwide by firefighters in multiple industries. The FSA was also able to purchase two new Subaru utility vehicles this fiscal year. The Subaru UTV’s are essential in moving hydration, safety equipment and FSA personnel quickly and inexpensively to and from the drill fields. Equipment purchases made by the FSA reflect our commitment to provide the best in safety, quality, and client focused services.

Page | 2

The April 7-13 1081 PLUS: Go Beyond the Standard course listed on the 2012 Open Enrollment Schedule has been moved to April 14-20 to avoid conflict with Easter weekend. The update is reflected on the “Upcoming Open Enrollment Schedule” included in this newsletter and on the 2012 Schedule posted to the FSA Web site.

APRIL 2012 1081 PLUS COURSE DATE CHANGED

Pictured (left to right): Mary Beth Donnelly, VP Government Relations, Newmont Gold Corporation; Ron Zureck, VP Administration & Finance, UNR; Lt. John Cassidy, FDNY; Glen Guttry, Elko County Commissioner; Bob Dickens, Director, Government Relations, UNR; Marc Johnson, President, UNR; Denise Baclawski, Executive Director, UNR Fire Science Academy; Chief Jim Robinson, Greensboro, NC Fire Department. Representatives of the University of Nevada, Reno, together with a contingent of FSA stakeholders and FSA alumni of grant funded programs, recently visited Washington D.C. to discuss potential emergency response training programs for delivery at the FSA.

THE FSA GOES TO WASHINGTON

Page | 3

Page | 4

Upcoming Open Enrollment Schedule 2011-2012

April 10-13: Industrial Fire Brigade Leader April 10-13: Advanced Exterior Industrial Firefighter April 14-20: 1081 Plus : Go Beyond the Standard April 16-20: 40-Hour CFR 139 April 17-19: Industrial Incident Safety Officer April 30-May 4: HAZWOPER 40-Hour Hazardous Materials Technician May 1-4: Entry Level Industrial Firefighter May 1-4: Industrial Fire Brigade Leader May 7-11: Rope Rescue

Feb 7-9: HAZWOPER 24-Hour/Hazardous Materials First Responder Operations Feb 27-Mar 2: HAZWOPER 40- Hour Hazardous Materials Technician Feb 28-Mar 1: Industrial Incident Safety Officer Mar 6-8: Hazardous Materials On-Scene Incident Commander Mar 6-9: Entry Level Industrial Firefighter Mar 6-9: Industrial Fire Brigade Leader Mar 12-16: Hazardous Materials Chemistry Mar 13-16: Advanced Exterior Industrial Firefighter

Nov 1-4: Entry Level Industrial Firefighter Nov 1-4: Industrial Fire Brigade Leader Nov 15-18: Advanced Exterior Industrial Firefighter November 15-18: Industrial Fire Brigade Leader Dec. 6-8: Developing & Implementing Tabletops, Drills & Exercises Jan 23-27: Instructional Delivery Jan 24-27: Incident Command Emergency Response Jan 31-Feb 2: Developing and Implementing Tabletops, Drills & Exercises

University of Nevada, Reno Fire Science

Academy P.O. Box 877

100 University Ave Carlin, NV 89822-0877

PHONE:

(775) 754-6003

FAX: (775) 754-6575

E-MAIL:

fireacademy@unr.edu

We’re on the Web! See us at:

www.fireacademy.unr.edu

About Our Organization…

“Who can hope to be safe? Who sufficiently cautious?

Guard himself as he may, every moment's an ambush.”

~Horace

Our vision is to be the worldwide leader in educating the emergency response and management community, recognized for our safety, quality, and client focus.