TFD Cadets Begin Long Process Of Becoming Firefighters

The Tulsa Fire Department has a dramatic way to test people hoping to get into its training academy. The cadets who want to the enter the academy each had to climb a 100-foot ladder as the final step before they could start training in the academy.

34 cadets will start their education at the Tulsa Fire Department academy on March 6, and the Tulsa Fire Department is working to fill positions left vacant by a large number of fire fighters who have retired over the last few years.

However, even learning in the academy is only about half of the training process. Roughly six and a half months after the academy training is dedicated to working on a fire truck for cadets to gain even more experience.

"Once they leave the academy and they’re assigned to their truck in the field, they have to continue with a packet that they have to take with them. They have to be practicing skills learned in the station, and your captains and lieutenants in the field are supervising them checking things off," Bryan Lloyd, TFD's chief of training said.

According to Lloyd, those six and a half months are a probationary period for the future fire fighters, and once they complete that training, then they'll be taken off the probationary status and be full fire fighters.

Lloyd also said that in each class, about 96% of cadets that start in the academy on day one will finish the training program and become fire fighters.