Responding to a crisis
Classes such as one offered at Parkland High School could be an answer to state’s shortage of volunteer firefighters
The fire behind Parkland High School was small but intense.
The wind whipped the flames in all directions as black smoke swirled.
One by one, 14 Parkland High School students approached with a fire extinguisher to put it out.
Some were confident and eager. Some were cautious. A few were hesitant.
They all accomplished their task — the lesson of the day in a unique science class that should be a model for other school districts.
Parkland’s Science of Firefighting is one of the few classes of its kind in Pennsylvania.
The Lehigh Valley and the rest of the state desperately need more volunteer firefighters. Courses such as this are a way to expose teenagers to the fire service.
Over the last half-century the number of volunteer firefighters in Pennsylvania has dropped from about 300,000 to about 40,000. And many of those still answering the calls are getting to the age where they may not be able to answer them much longer.
The class was started in 1999 by Barry Search, a Parkland science teacher who at the time was assistant chief of the Woodlawn Fire Department in South Whitehall.
He had two goals: expose students to firefighting and give them a different way to learn science.
“It was a vessel to teach science to students who really didn’t want to take the chemistry or the physics or some of those other courses,” said Search, who is retired from teaching but still helps with the class in his role as fire chief at Woodlawn.
Bringing science to life in a real-world application gets them interested and helps them recognize why it’s important to understand the sciences, Search told me.
Most years, a few students are motivated to try firefighting. Some stay with it.
“I see these kids all the time who were in the class,” Search said. “It’s kind of neat.”
He may see Colton Graves.
Graves, 17, is a junior at Parkland. He joined the Cetronia Fire Department two years ago as a junior firefighter. He enrolled in Science of Firefighting, thinking it would be a good refresher of what he already had learned.
The class exceeded his expectations.
“It really is able to show you every aspect of firefighting,” Graves said.
He hopes the class motivates other students to join their local volunteer fire department. It motivated him to expand his service. He’s now training to become a firefighter with the Lehigh County Forestry Task Force, which tackles wildfires.
Graves signed up after a task force member visited the class.
“It was something new,” he said. “It was a challenge.
“I enjoyed firefighting. I wanted to try that aspect of it.”
Graves plans to enlist in the Army after graduation and hopes to become a combat medic. When he leaves the service, he would like to resume volunteering.
Joining the Cetronia company, Graves said, “has been one of the greatest choices I made.”
He enjoys the brotherhood and “being able to give back to the community in a way that you really can’t in any other way.”
Recruitment is critical
State lawmakers and other officials have repeatedly looked at ways to support volunteer firefighting, including replenishing their ranks.
The latest effort four years ago produced a 104-page report with 27 recommendations. The
No. 1 recommendation: “Expand, modernize, and incentivize recruitment and retention efforts.”
One suggestion was to implement a career and technical education training program for public safety jobs in the public school system.
The state has a multiyear curriculum that is offered at 33 school districts, mostly through vocational and technical schools, including the Bethlehem Area Vocational-Technical School.
The Octorara Area School District in Chester County has partnered with the Chester County Department of Emergency Services to build a program that is open to students from every school district in the county.
“We knew it was a problem throughout Chester County,” said Lisa McNamara, Octorara’s director of career and technical education.
“The benefit for our students is tremendous, but the benefit for our community is just as tremendous.”
Students use the county’s training facility, used by professionals all along the East Coast.
“We are providing our students with the highest-quality industry standards by having this partnership,” McNamara said.
Between 15 and 20 Octorara students participate each year. This year, there are 28 enrolled from other districts, the most ever.
The training program offers 83 credentials in firefighting, emergency medical services and law enforcement. Students can graduate high school and be nationally certified in firefighting, hazmat, vehicle rescue and other skills.
The program “highly suggests” that firefighting students join their local volunteer fire company, and most do, McNamara said.
Other school districts have visited Octorara’s program as they explore developing their own.
The job of vocational schools is to train students for a career, though. Students who dedicate their high school years to studying a trade are more likely to pursue a career as a paid firefighter instead of being a volunteer.
Classes such as Parkland’s Science of Firefighting, which lasts for one semester, have the potential to reach students who may be interested enough to volunteer but may not want to pursue firefighting as a career.
Science of Firefighting
Eric Gopen, an economics teacher and volunteer firefighter in Lower Macungie and Emmaus, took over the class after Search retired. He’s been teaching it for about a decade.
The class is open to juniors and seniors. It includes physics, chemistry, biology and engineering concepts and explores the chemistry of fires.
Students receive instruction in handling hazardous materials. They learn first aid and CPR and learn skills for rescuing injured people, such as how to use ropes and pulleys to lift people up slopes.
Gopen is an instructor for the Pennsylvania State Fire Academy and Bucks County Community College. Because of his credentials, students in the class earn a certificate for HAZMAT awareness.
Local fire departments help with the class.
“It’s been a community effort,” Gopen said.
Volunteers from Greenawalds Fire/Rescue helped with the fire extinguisher training. They lit the fires for the students to put out.
Greenawalds volunteer Steven Schneider, who works for Kistler O’Brien Fire Protection, taught the students how to use the extinguishers by sweeping at the base of the fire. He also explained the history of the equipment and which extinguishers to use on which types of fires.
“With young people having so many options with regard to activities today, it is important to get them excited and interested in the fire service as early as possible,” Gopen said.
“The Science of Firefighting class aims to do that by offering students real-world applications of the scientific concepts they learn, coupled with actual firefighters, to create a memorable experience that will hopefully motivate them to come out and join a volunteer department.”
It motivated Jonathan Steed. He was on his way to becoming a psychiatrist when he enrolled in Science of Firefighting as a junior.
“I more or less signed up for it for an easy ‘A,’ ” he said.
Steed fell in love with the work. He started volunteering with the Woodlawn department and spent 13 years there.
Steed got a degree in fire service administration and, after a year working as a fire marshal at Boston University, he joined the Allentown Fire Department.
“I probably would have done OK as a psychiatrist ... but it wouldn’t have been quite as meaningful,” he said. “To give kids these options, this was such a unique opportunity that I had that so many other kids didn’t have. And it plugged me into a completely different culture that I would not have found otherwise.”
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s priceless for schools to offer these opportunities to kids.”
A model for others
Gopen told me that fire officials in a few other school districts, including Northwestern Lehigh and Salisbury, are looking at the class as a model they’d like to see in their districts.
“We’re all in,” said Randy Metzger, deputy chief of the Germansville Fire Company. “If we could get a program started in our district, we’d do it tomorrow.”
He keeps in touch with Gopen and has been monitoring the class from afar, reviewing the course materials.
Metzger said Germansville and its nearby partners — Lynnport, Weisenberg and New Tripoli — would like to see the Northwestern Lehigh School District offer a course like Parkland’s. They’d be willing to help out.
It’s up to local fire companies and their municipalities to work with their school districts to set up such programs, state Fire Commissioner Charles McGarvey Sr. said.
That can be a hard sell, said Tom Cook, administrator of the State Fire Academy.
“The school districts aren’t beating the door down to talk to us,” he said.
If districts are interested, the fire commissioner’s office can provide model curriculum to meet the standards set by the state Department of Education. But districts must find a teacher such as Gopen who is accredited by the academy.
And they also need to have the budget for the class.
“When you look at a school district that already has a strapped budget, they want to help the fire department, but they have no ability to do it,” Cook said.
Child labor laws that prevent minors from using some types of equipment also are a hurdle. Technical schools have waivers, but traditional schools do not, Cook said.
The fire commissioners office is working with legislators to try to change that to allow more instruction to occur in traditional classrooms such as at Parkland.
More districts are offering students who are volunteers credit for the time they put in, similar to a work study program, Cook said.
Last year I wrote about a legislative plan that has merit.
Senate Bill 83 would create and fund a partnership between colleges and high schools and technical schools to recruit and train students to become volunteer firefighters.
The state would pay at least $150,000 to three Pennsylvania colleges — community colleges or those in the State System of Higher Education — to create training programs.
They would be open to students starting in ninth grade and lead to a Firefighter I certification. The initiative would be done on a trial basis for four years. The results then would be reviewed to determine whether the program should continue.
The legislation passed the Senate unanimously about a year ago. The House seemed poised to act swiftly on it, with the bill being endorsed by a committee last summer. But it has sat dormant since last June.
This is why the public gets frustrated with state government. Even what should be non-controversial initiatives take forever.
The fire commissioner’s office is working with lawmakers to implement recommendations from the latest legislative report completed in 2018. Some changes have been made, including adding staff who specialize in recruitment and retention of volunteers.
“The efforts are there,” McGarvey said. “It’s just going to take some time.”
Like fighting a fire, a speedy response is critical.