Enhancing Firefighter Training in Great Bend - From the desk of Chief Smith
Along with our everyday calls for service and daily station duties the firefighters at Great Bend Fire are also required to perform daily training. Each firefighter is required a minimum of 196 hours of fire training and between 30 and 60 hours of EMS training annually to keep their certifications. Both the fire and EMS training requirements are broken up into categories. This is why you will see firefighters placing the ladder truck on buildings in our downtown area, pulling hoses/flowing water, and touring various businesses in our response area, just to name a few areas we are required to have training hours in. The Great Bend Fire Department has a training facility located at Fire Station 2 on the west side of Great Bend. We originally identified the need to expand this facility to allow our firefighters to train on realistic live fire scenarios. Over the past 6 months we have built a facility that has the ability to allow us to set up scenarios for basement, first floor, and second floor fires. The facility has movable walls on the interior to allow for multiple interior layouts. With the help of some local businesses there are plans to expand the training facility even further. We have been donated a railcar tanker, which will be delivered soon, so that we can train on railroad emergencies. We also have plans to add a confined space training prop along with a grain bin for training on grain elevator emergencies. Once finished this facility will provide for the current and future training needs of the Great Bend Fire Department. We train to make ourselves better, which in turn makes Great Bend a safer place to visit and live.