Southwest Fire Academy

The Southwest Fire Academy was created in June of 2015 by a dedicated group of training professionals that recognized the need for safe, quality NFPA compliant training in Ontario. SFA can offer several program delivery options that meet the local needs and circumstances of our clients as well as we offer open enrollment courses for individual students. We have partnered with AJ Stone Company in order to provide the highest quality equipment and PPE available to the fire and emergency services today. Our programs include everything from live fire training, technical rescue disciplines to officer development. All of our programs include classroom instruction, out of class work and assignments, and each student will be evaluated with exams and job performance requirements designed to test the requisite knowledge and skills as required in the NFPA Standards. We have made it our focus to include educational experience that couples the book-work with the real life experience of highly qualified instructors. Our Commitment to Safety In the emergency service industry, firefighter and rescuer safety is a core value and we carry that core value forward to our students and instructors. The Southwest Fire Academy is committed to providing the highest quality training at a cost affordable for both individuals and departments while always providing a safe and comfortable atmosphere for our students. All Southwest Fire Academy instructors are NFPA 1041 Level I qualified and qualified in the discipline they are instructing, additionally all our lead instructors are NFPA 1041 Level II certified. In order to maintain a safe training environment we impose strict 5:1 student to instructor ratio for all increased hazard exposure training sessions: • Live fire training • HAZMAT • Above and below grade operations • Training with power tools In addition to our strict 5:1 student to instructor ratio during increased hazard exposure training we commit to having an additional, independent safety officer. Our safety officers are all qualified to NFPA 1521 and qualified in the discipline for which they are assigned. The Southwest Fire Academy has implemented several additional systems to ensure the safety of our students, instructors and the public who may be watching the training: • Enforce accountability and entry control during increased hazard exposure training • Implement training safety plans that are reviewed and signed by students and instructors prior to participating in practical training sessions • Committed through an exclusive partnership with AJ Stone to providing only the best equipment and PPE available to the emergency services Sadly we can look back to two recent incidents that have taken the lives of students participating in technical rescue training. Gary Kendal, a veteran firefighter and Adam Brunt, a pre-fire service student were both killed during ice rescue training. All of us at the Southwest Fire Academy believe that with the exception of a sudden medical event there should never be a student killed during a training exercise, and even sudden medical events should be planned for. Anything less is unacceptable. We often provide instructor training at our academy. One of the key lessons and area of focus is that as instructors we are members of a profession, and as such we have obligations to our students, ourselves, our departments and our profession as a whole; and our first priority is our student’s safety. Our students, their families and the public don’t know the hazards like we do, they entrust us to protect their loved ones, we owe it to them to do our jobs right! Students also have a responsibility for safe training, ask questions, insist to see training safety plans before training and learn to say STOP if you have a question about safety or a concern about what you are being asked to do. On our website at www.southwestfireacademy.ca we have provided a link to our training safety plan for everyone to download for free, please use it, please share it and please improve it. Nothing will bring back Gary or Adam, but let our unwavering commitment to safety be a tribute to Gary Kendal and Adam Brunt. On behalf of Southwest Fire Academy I would like to thank you for showing your interest in us. If you have any comments or questions please do not hesitate to contact us directly at: Southwest Fire Academy 519-550-1232 admin@fire-academy.ca www.southwestfireacademy.ca