SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. — At the Spokane Valley fire station on Pioneer Lane, future firefighters are getting schooled.
“You wanna drop your nozzle," one instructor tells a small group of trainees.
For the next 18 weeks, fifteen new recruits will learn the ropes.
”Once we get these basics down, the crawl stage, then we speed up, make the process a little bit faster," said Captain Shawn Pichette. "The intended goal is at the end of this academy these guys and gals are ready to work on the engines and serve the people here in Spokane Valley.”
For this academy, Captain Pichette says, the department went national to pull in hires from across the country.
”Which is a huge plus for us," Captain Pichette said. "That was our intention here in this last testing process was the have a bigger reach on the number of applicants and the diversity of applicants we were trying to get hold of.”
Like Colorado native Craig Miller, who has worked with SVFD as a volunteer at another fire department.
“I served in the Marine Corps before this and when I got out I missed that sense of brotherhood and having a job where I was serving other people," Miller said.
He and other recruits are learning how to handle hoses, ladders, and locked doors.
Miller says, of his training so far, he likes the physicality of using tools to break through the doors. Even though he has some firefighting experience, some of his fellow hires are coming to the department with no prior training.
“Every department has a different way of doing things," Miller said. "You can never have too much practice, especially with the basics.”
In about four months, they'll be ready for live fires as they join a crew fighting to fill its ranks.
”We missed two years of hiring so now we’re trying to play catch-up," said Captain Pichette.
The department's calls have increased, hitting a record 23,240 incident responses in 2022. Captain Pichette says that's as members of the department retired or left.
”The need for us is drastically increasing, fires and medical incidents we all run on," Captain said.
This year SVFD will run back-to-back academies to make up the difference, with another set of new hires starting training mid-April.
”Putting these guys on the streets June 1 we’re still gonna be behind a little bit," Captain Pichette said of the current class. ”Uh, relief is in sight for us.”
The department is also asking voters to approve a renewed Maintenance and Operations levy on February 14.
The department said the levy keeps stations open, replaces old equipment and hires more firefighters.
The vote would secure funding for the next four years.
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