Minnesota Wildfire Academy Trains About 700 Firefighters

Trainees from fourteen states learn how to battle fires in extreme conditions

GRAND RAPIDS, Minn. – This week, hundreds of firefighters are getting hands-on training in Grand Rapids.

Fire professionals have come from fourteen states to take part in the training.

Seven-hundred firefighters are learning skills in fire suppression and fire training at the Wildfire Academy at Itasca Community College.

“We can take it so far in the classroom through discussions but practical application in the field, live training is where we get a lot of bang for our buck,” said Rob Johnson, a DNR Helicopter Operations Specialist.

A helicopter flies overhead as crew members work with the chopper, learning how to get supplies in remote locations.

“These kinds of operations would bring critical equipment, food, water, personal gear in to support the firefighters while they’re on that fire,” said Johnson.

The students are learning dozens of skills this week, so they’re ready to fight real fires in extreme conditions.

“This is for agency firefighters, it is for rural fire department people, it is for whoever would be dealing with wildland fire,” said Peter Leschak, a Natural Resources Fire Technician who has been fighting fires his whole career.

Leschak is now happy to spend his time teaching the next generation.

“I’m on my way out, I’ve done this for 35 years, I’m closer to the end than I am the beginning, I get paid to do this, but one of my missions is I train my replacements,” said Leschak.

He tells us crews aren’t always battling the flames as aggressively as they used to. Instead, they’ve learned to let more fires burn.

“Where we used to use ten, twenty person crews, we now might use five, but there is the endless demand in that we always need wildlands firefighters,” said Leschak.

The basic course alone is training more than eighty more firefighters from across the country so they’re ready to serve wherever they’re needed.

“There’s nothing more important than training, obviously. And so, one of the advantages of the academy is that we can do it in one place, we can do a lot of cross training between disciplines,” said Leschak.

This is the nineteenth year for the Wildfire Academy.

This year, twenty-six courses are offered from chainsaw certification to public information.