Have engine, will train

It’s a fire engine to most people.

It’s red, long, with sirens and lights — all the bells and whistles.

To Bill Deruyter, it is an apparatus, and that’s what his students at the North Idaho College firefighter academy will call the 1999 E-One engine that earlier this week became an instructional aid in the annual NIC workforce training course.

Deruyter, a captain with the Coeur d’Alene Fire Department, doubles as an instructor at the class that starts each year in January and ends sometime in spring.

It includes two days per week of classroom training and one day per week of practical training leading up to live fire exercises, fire readiness and testing for a nationally recognized

certificate in fire fighting basics.

The course offers students a step into the world of firefighters with the use of authentic equipment, a burn tower and the hustle and hard work of a real fire station environment. But for seven years since it began, the course was without an engine.

That changed this week when the Coeur d’Alene department donated the big, red, E-One to the program.

Fire Chief Kenny Gabriel’s request that the Coeur d’Alene City Council authorize his department to turn over the E-One pumper as a gift to North Idaho College was approved by council members.

Which made it official.

No more standing in line, waiting for students to get their Kevlar and Nomex-gloved hands on a real-live fire engine.

“In the past we used backup engines,” Deruyter said.

But if a first-line engine was in the shop, or the backup was being used elsewhere, students had to wait for the practical experience of learning to use the equipment on the rolling apparatus.

They had to wait to get their hands on the truck’s hoses and pump, to get a glimpse of the engine, and learn how to turn on the lights or lock away the ladders.

Having an engine dedicated to the academy not only gives students a chance to work with one of the major pieces of equipment of any fire department, it opens the doors to more avenues of training, Deruyter said.

“That’s another benefit of the donation,” he said. “It opens up more classes.”

Having the E-One at the academy will allow students to be trained in the basics of fire apparatus mechanics, engine operations, fire pump mechanics.

“A lot of people don’t know you can get hired by a fire department and be a mechanic,” he said. “They think it’s just EMTs and firefighters.”

Marie Price, whom academy instructors endearingly call “Chief,” is NIC’s workforce training director.

She has tracked academy graduates for the past seven years to see how well the training prepares its students for the heat of real live firefighting.

Since the academy started in 2011, she said, 70 percent of its graduates are either working as paid or volunteer firefighters, EMS or they are enrolled in continuing education firefighter courses.

“This course really engages students interested in emergency services careers,” Price said.

Students who complete the course earn a national certification, but because the field is highly competitive, they usually must still be chosen to go through the rigmarole of passing physical and oral tests before they get a shot at working at a fire department — in paid or volunteer positions.

Graduates of the NIC academy have found work at Kootenai County, Northern Lakes, Worley and other local departments, but so far no graduate has cracked into the highly competitve Coeur d’Alene Fire Department.

“We’ve come close,” Deruyter said.

Having an engine on board will give students added oomph in their training, in addition to the already hands-on training the academy affords.

“It gives them a feeling of what it’s like to be part of a fire team,” Price said. “It gives them a simulation of what it’s like to be a firefighter.”