St. Tammany Fire District No. 1 this week welcomed abroad seven new members to their ranks. Today Fire District No. 1 Fire Chief, Larry Hess the Slidell area fire department has placed seven new firefighters on duty. Hess noted, that the fire department has billets for 150 full-time members to man the seven fire stations located throughout the Fire District.
Hess said, the fire department is experiencing a period of increased retirements and, to a lesser degree, other reasons causing vacancies to be filled. We will have the retirement issue becoming somewhat more problematic and impacting us to a greater degree over the next two to four years Hess stated. Because of that, we will have to be on top of the situation to properly plan for replacements he continued.
Three of the new members completed the Firefighter Basic Training at LSU today and our members again lead the class. Once again we are proud to have one of our candidates identified as the class valedictorian.
Candidate Matthew Spreen was named valedictorian of the LSU class graduation today.
Brandon Sauter, Mark Moroney, Matthew Spreen, Alvin Davis, Matthew Lato, David Darby, and Brian Goings are the other new members coming to work during the course of the next week.
The LSU Program consists of 14 weeks of comprehensive academic and hands-on firefighting training. Upon graduation the candidates have received Firefighter l and ll National Certifications.
I know the new members are anxious to get to work and we’re ready to put them to work, Hess said.