The Mountain Times

Stafford students earn FEMA certification in incident command

Eleven Stafford Technical Center Students in the Forestry and Natural Resources Program and the Public Safety Services Program have mastered the US Government FEMA course entitled "Incident Command" and have become nationally certified in this area after successfully passing an examination administered by FEMA. The course was taught to the students by Matt Trombley of Pittsford, a Burlington firefighter who teaches courses through the Vermont Fire Academy.

Incident Command is a system that is used by the government, the military, emergency services, and industry to deal with an incident of any size, from a one car crash to Hurricane Katrina. Incident Command provides a system where agencies, large or small, can individually or together, manage the incident most effectively. It provides clear lines on control and command based on the principles that there should only be one person in charge of each incident, and that each supervisor should control no more than seven people directly. It further allocates personnel by function (for example, a drug task force, which may include undercover officers, patrol officers, prosecutors, technicians, and others) or a group, which includes personnel of only one type (the undercover units). Students in the public Safety Services Program's SADD/VTLSP Chapter routinely use this system when they run a project.

The students successfully finishing the course are  Cassandra Sourdiff and Brandi Heath of Brandon, Trisha Bush and Dustin Stone of Danby, Aleea Dauphinais of Wallingford, Hannah Poljacik, Justin Franklin, and Amber Fischer of Rutland, John Blanchard and Roger Brown of Middletown Springs, Vincent Venturella  of Chittenden, and Joel Galvin of Castleton. This training is sponsored by the Vermont Fire Academy, and will qualify as required training for Trisha Bush, a member of the Danby-Mount Tabor Fire Department, Justin Franklin, a member of the Clarendon Fire Department, and John Blanchard and Roger Brown, members of the Middletown Springs Volunteer Fire Department.