July 10^th – All summer long Greenwood Volunteers will be working on their certification levels to assure that they are capable of providing the best possible service to the fire district’s residents. Thanks to a grant from FEMA’s Assistance to Firefighter’s Grant program, Greenwood’s firefighters are working with a Granbury company, fireintexas.com, to gain higher levels of state certification.  In the picture above (starting at the top right) FF’s Chad McBride, Tom Palatino, Milt Reichek, Rod Bass, and Lieutenants Ben Meche and Mark Privitt receive instruction on the finer points of fire hose deployment.  All their skills are timed and in full bunker gear.  The firefighters must demonstrate that they can do the skills in times that are established as state standards.

It’s a lot of hard work in the heat of a Texas summer and the firefighter’s must be monitored continuously to assure that they don’t develop heat exhaustion.  One of the firefighter’s compared the training to the two-a-days that he went through in high school football.

As the number of certified firefighters grows it will help the department to improve its insurance rating, which ultimately will yield lower fire insurance premiums for the district’s residents.