{"id":24545,"date":"2024-12-07T11:14:04","date_gmt":"2024-12-07T18:14:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-fire-protection-district-reinstating-its-junior-firefighter-program\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:55:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:55:19","slug":"cortez-fire-protection-district-reinstating-its-junior-firefighter-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-fire-protection-district-reinstating-its-junior-firefighter-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez Fire Protection District reinstating its junior firefighter program"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The Cortez Fire Protection District\u2019s junior firefighter program teaches students ages 15 to 17 about that line of work. (Courtesy of Gabriel Rogers)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The Cortez Fire Protection District is reinstating its junior firefighter program after a brief hiatus.<\/p>\n

The program will only accept six junior firefighters at this time, and the application deadline is Dec. 16. The program is set to officially start in January.<\/p>\n

Students ages 15 to 17 are eligible for the program. The program was created for people who are interested in fire service, but are too young to be a volunteer firefighter or a paid member of the fire department.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s basically an opportunity for kids that are interested in the fire service as a career, they can be a junior when they turn 15,\u201d Captain Gabriel Rogers told The<\/em> Journal<\/em>. \u201cThis is an opportunity for them to get in when they\u2019re a little bit young. By the time they\u2019re 18, they already kind of have a good head start on everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Austin Featherman, who was in the program in 2018 as one of the original junior firefighters, is now a full-time firefighter in both Cortez and Farmington.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrior to this, I really didn\u2019t know much about firefighters or what they did. Like a little kid, you see the lights flashing down the street, and you\u2019re like, \u2018Oh that\u2019s super cool,\u2019 but this introduced me to the fire service,\u201d Featherman said. \u201cI was super fortunate to know by the time I turned 18 and was ready to go into the real world and look for real jobs, that this was what I wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taking part in the program, junior firefighters will \u201cbe exposed to all aspects of training\u201d that are required for fire academies and associated skills.<\/p>\n

Juniors may also get to assist on emergency calls, if they stay out of the hazard zone. Some tasks that juniors may take part in include picking up and cleaning equipment, as well as attending biweekly meetings and complete assigned trainings with their fire district advisers and other personnel.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we have a structural fire, when we get back to the station, we have a bunch of hose that has to be cleaned, and the trucks have to be cleaned and we got to reload a bunch of equipment, so they can help up with that stuff \u2026 get everything back in service,\u201d Rogers said.<\/p>\n

They can also do ride-alongs with on-duty firefighters.<\/p>\n

The program doesn\u2019t have a specific end date, other than when a student turns 18 years old.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just however long that the individual wants to do it,\u201d Rogers said.<\/p>\n

Featherman said that when he went to the fire academy, he felt more prepared because of what he learned as a junior firefighter.<\/p>\n

Featherman said the program can help those who are interested kick-start their career in not only firefighting, but also the medical field, military and more.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a good steppingstone to look into different careers, even if they don\u2019t know that they want to be a firefighter right now,\u201d Featherman said. \u201cIt\u2019s the introduction to a lot of great things.\u201d<\/p>\n

The application can be found online at cortezfire.com<\/a>. After printing and filling out the application, it can be emailed or dropped off at the fire station, 31 N. Washington St.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they don\u2019t have access to printing it, they can come into the station and pick up an application and fill it out here,\u201d Rogers and Featherman said.<\/p>\n

The firefighters are also available to answer questions about the program and career options. For more information, contact Rogers at grogers@cortezfire.com<\/a> and 970-560-7461 or Battalion Chief Rick Spencer at pspencer@cortezfire.com<\/a> and 970-739-3740.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can come in anytime and talk to anybody here about the program,\u201d Rogers said. \u201cWe\u2019re always willing to talk to anybody about the career path, what the job looks like, all of that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

department will accept six junior firefighters for its 2025 program<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,155,350,28,60,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-24545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-education","tag-fire","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24545"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78575,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24545\/revisions\/78575"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24545"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=24545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}