RUSSELLVILLE—Multiple land management agencies from around Arkansas and Oklahoma virtually hosted the Arkansas Wildland Fire Academy May 10 – May 21.
The Academy, which began 22 years ago, provided 429 wildland firefighters from 25 states specialized advanced training to help equip them for wildland fire and other incident assignments, both at home and in other parts of the country.
Virtual sand table exercises and video demonstrations took the place of classroom collaboration and hands-on learning, but wildland firefighters from Alaska to Florida to New Mexico participated in specialized advanced training to help equip them for wildland fire and other incident assignments, both at home and in other parts of the country. The Academy is critical training for career advancement opportunities, position qualifications, and higher-level incident response administration. With restrictions in place for classroom-style learning and in-person gatherings, and travel restrictions still imposed for many agencies, this year’s Academy was hosted on virtual platforms including Zoom and Microsoft Teams.
“Ideally, hosting the Academy in person is preferable, but we ended up being able to actually reach more students this way, and still provide the same top quality training as always,” said Ouachita and Ozark-St. Francis National Forests’ Fire Training Program Management Officer Dustin Kingwell. “Instructors prepared for months in advance to formulate material into virtual delivery methods, just like classrooms all across the world had to do this last school year.”
