• Personnel Standards & Education Commission: Commissioner Mike Green’s appointment with AAVFD expires this month. Commissioner Josh Bryant will take the Oath of Office on July 20th and will be the AAVFD representative going forward. There will be a Commission work session on July 19th at 1200 and the Commission meeting will take place on July 20th at 0900.
  • Learning Management System: The student portal is now available. Two epics remain: the regional coordinator dashboard and the administrative dashboard. Report-writing will also be completed by August. We know there are some glitches in the system which is the reason we have not widely publicized when each segment is released. Everyone who has requested access, if they have the appropriate credentials, has been granted access. Please notify webadmin@alabamafirecollege.org or tmcnair@alabamafirecollege.org if you find any issues, problems, or concerns, or if you have recommendations for improvement that would make your job more efficient and effective; we rely heavily on your feedback.
  • Emergency Medical Services: We anticipate having more than 50 paramedic students beginning in the fall term.
    • EMT self-study, self-paced course: We have 50 students who have taken the course; approximately 40 have passed the NREMT (80% pass rate).
    • Volunteer Scholarships: Four years ago, the state appropriated $125,000/year to incentivize volunteers and rescue squad members to attend EMT training. This was a reimbursement based on proof of obtaining a State EMT license. They have subsequently included Advanced EMT and Paramedic as eligible for the tuition reimbursement. One of the concerns of the Alabama Community College System, as well as volunteers, is that some volunteers may not have the resources to pay the upfront costs to attend EMS training. AFC will be offering 10 scholarships to volunteers to gauge volunteers’ interest in a scholarship program as opposed to the reimbursement program. We are developing a web page and will forward the link to the fire service once the page is complete. More information to come!
    • Alabama EMS Challenge attendance has increased by 48.7% since last year. If you would like to host the Alabama EMS Challenge, contact Wes Ward at wward@centerpointfire.com.
  • Alabama Mutual Aid System (AMAS): Funding requests from teams/Divisions are due to the State tomorrow, July 13th, 2022. There is a new portal where budget detail worksheets are to be input by each team. This has been a learning process and will require collaboration between teams and their county EMA’s. Matt Russell has been selected to assist in reviewing the State Homeland Security Grant Program (SHSGP) funding requests. This is the first year that the AMAS committee is aware that the fire service has had representation on this committee. Budget detail worksheets from all AMAS teams with their entire requests were collected and submitted to ALEA. The total was $8.6M. I conveyed to ALEA that while we are thankful for the funding we receive, there are still significant unmet needs.
  • Alabama Fire Safety Summit: July 21: www.alabamafirecollege.org/safetysummit (FIVE Fire Prevention Week kits will be given away by NFPA & State Farm! AS WELL AS FIVE $1000 public safety grants!) This event is FREE and includes lunch. We need attendees to register for these so we can accurately estimate lunch numbers.
  • Community Risk Reduction from an Investigator’s POV with Speaker Rick Freier: July 22 (Fire Investigator from Spokane Valley, WA): www.alabamafirecollege.org/crrworkshop. This event is FREE and includes lunch. We need attendees to register for these so we can accurately estimate lunch numbers.
  • AFC staff were privileged to attend Camp Conquest on June 14th to serve lunch and supper. Thanks to Fire Chief Justin McKenzie (Fultondale Fire Department) for coordinating and planning the meals for the camp!
  • We have compiled information from a volunteer training survey to determine the needs of the volunteer fire service. We have provided $40,000 in instructional costs so volunteers could attend training tuition-free. Typically these courses occurred at the AFC on weekends. Based on the number of students who attended, the tuition costs would have been approximately $70,000.
  • Public Fire and Life Safety Educator I, a 24-hour course, has been released as a “field delivery” course. There will be a vetting process for instructors prior to teaching this course. More information to follow.
  • Certification: We have issued more than 10,117 certifications so far this year. Today we are 18% ahead compared to this time last year. We are on pace to issue more than 13,000 certifications this year.
Advertisement