Blazin' hot: USAFA firefighter teaches firefighting skills to Afghan military

  • Published
  • By Capt. Anastasia Wasem
  • NATO Air Training Command-Afghanistan Public Affairs
KABUL, Afghanistan --  An Academy firefighter deployed to Kabul Afghanistan is now serving as firefighting-advisor for the first-ever Fire Instructor Course offered to Afghan Air Force and Afghan Nation Army firefighters.

Thirteen students from four different locations around Kabul graduated the course taught by Master Sgt. Jeffrey Hackworth and other fire-advisors from NATO Air Training Command-Afghanistan on Oct. 31. The graduates are now certified to teach other Afghan firefighters at their home fire stations.

"The words Shohna-ba-Shohna ['shoulder-to-shoulder' in Dari] could not be any truer than right now," said Hackworth, a native of Jackson, Mich., at the graduation ceremony. "Now all of you have gone from student to teacher. You can go back to your base, train your firefighters and sign-off on core tasks and upgrade training. This is a huge step towards a self-sustaining Afghan Air Force fire service."

The five-day course covered a variety of firefighting tops including delivering instructions effectively, using and adapting lesson plans, methods of instruction, testing and feedback and roles and responsibilities of department training managers. The students were also required to pass a written and practical examination.

"I am very happy for this graduation," said an AAF fire instructor from Pohantoon-e-Hawayee "Air University" in Kabul. "The mentors taught us a lot and now we have information and lessons that we are able to take back to our units to teach. By having classes like this we are each able to continue to teach additional students."

The goal for the course was to create a standard to be used by all agencies within Afghanistan to train and instruct firefighters.

Course advisors have also developed a fire chief course scheduled to begin in December.