Minnesota’s 19th annual Wildfire Academy for firefighter training is in its fourth of five days at Itasca Community College in Grand Rapids. D-N-R Deputy Incident Commander Aaron Mielke says 725 participants from a variety of agencies are taking basic and advanced courses which are nationally certified. “Many of our folks that are here and teaching and participating do get sent across anywhere in the United States that needs help — just like same thing here, when we bring folks in from other states, they’ve have the same training back at their home units.”
Mielke says there are about four large wildfire academies across the U-S, and Minnesota’s is one of the bigger ones.