For most of her adult life, Erika Tello, a 21-year U.S. Navy veteran, has been a firefighter at bases around the world \u2014 including her last post as an emergency management supervisor in Bahrain \u2014 and worked on some of the most sophisticated battleships out there.<\/p>\n
However, since retiring from the military in 2023, Tello, who has an associate degree in fire science and a bachelor\u2019s degree in fire management, said she has faced a competitive job market as a civilian, even with decades of experience under her belt.<\/p>\n
She is looking for any edge she can get.<\/p>\n
Last week, Tello became one of 43\u00a0students enrolled in Miramar College\u2019s bachelor of science in public safety management program, a new curriculum teaching students \u2014 many of whom are currently employed or have extensive backgrounds as first responders \u2014 niche or advanced skills that will give more more opportunities to climb the ranks in their careers as emergency situation managers.<\/p>\n
The program\u2019s inception comes at a time when the demand for first responders is especially high due to climate change, growing population density and recruiting issues for agencies throughout the country.<\/p>\n
According to data provided by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, both the area burned by wildfires and the number of large fires have increased across the state in the last century. All but two of the 20 largest wildfires \u2014 identified as burning 10,000 acres or more between 1950 and 2023 \u2014 occurred since 2000.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnytime a candidate can go above and beyond, continuing their education or attracting other fire-related course certifications, the more competitive they\u2019ll be during the hiring process,\u201d Cal Fire Captain Robert Johnson said. \u201cAnd although we\u2019re generally always hiring, there are always more applicants than job openings.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cal Fire officials said at a minimum, applicants for entry-level firefighter positions must be at least 18 years old and have a valid driver\u2019s license. However, many prospects have attained a handful of other certifications before they\u2019ve even enrolled in the department\u2019s academy, bolstering their resumes with basic firefighting and\/or emergency medical technician courses, as well as other relevant job experience.<\/p>\n
San Diego Fire-Rescue has similar requirements, but even with recruits entering the academy with supplemental training, city officials made the decision a few years back to extend the academy from 16 weeks to 18 weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cSan Diego Fire-Rescue Department is one of the busiest, if not the busiest, departments in the county, with 188,000 calls per year,\u201d said San Diego Fire-Rescue Chief Robert Logan. \u201cSo, we do hire people that don\u2019t already have (firefighting experience), but usually there have to be other things that carry a lot of weight.\u201d<\/p>\n
San Diego Fire-Rescue saw its number of applications rise from 1,974 in 2021 to 2,282 last year. Those numbers are whittled down to two or three academy classes a year with 36 to 48 cadets per class. Cal Fire San Diego saw similar application numbers.<\/p>\n
Fire officials said the departments will be required to not only continue to scale up their manpower relative to demand driven by climate change and increasing populations, but also ensure their firefighters have the wide range of skills necessary for modern first responders.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe need for firefighters and fire stations continues to grow as we become more dense in our communities,\u201d Logan said. \u201cAnd so one of the things we focus on as a department, and as a city, is to make sure that we\u2019re paying our folks a fair and competitive wage, so that we can capture not only the skilled firefighters, but the skilled firefighter paramedics that are out there that we\u2019re all looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Law enforcement officials said they are having similar issues, especially at the upper management levels. Jared Wilson, president of the San Diego Police Officers Association, said of the 1,834 sworn positions in the department, about 100 are \u201cmanagement\u201d positions, most of which are held by officers with four-year or graduate degrees.<\/p>\n
And while sworn-officer recruits require only a high-school diploma and to be legally authorized to work in the U.S., Wilson said there\u2019s constant pressure on officers to be on top of the latest technology and criminal justice laws.<\/p>\n
San Diego police officers, much like other law enforcement departments in the county, are also expected to respond to everything from medical calls to homicides to natural disasters, Wilson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got the camera on us, and the radios just got a little bit more complex \u2026 I sometimes have to be an IT person myself,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cThe amount of stuff that (officers) need to know is just getting greater and greater.\u201d<\/p>\n
Teaching leaders<\/p>\n
A number of local community colleges and universities have begun to offer a wider selection of degrees and certifications that are specifically targeted at current or prospective first responders.<\/p>\n
Mesa College\u2019s health information management program is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, and San Diego City College\u2019s cyber defense and analysis program, which launched in 2024, will graduate its first cohort of students in May.<\/p>\n
And earlier this year, the county launched the San Diego Emergency Medical Services Corps, offering adults aged 18 to 26 with backgrounds in the juvenile justice or child welfare systems a chance at a five-month, hands-on training program that teaches around 40 participants how to become EMTs.<\/p>\n
Miramar College\u2019s newest program is joining the fray.<\/p>\n
The community college already offered associate\u2019s degrees in fire protection and emergency medical tech \u2014 with courses that cover the basics on everything from anatomy to disaster triage to fire suppression.<\/p>\n
However, officials said the new bachelor\u2019s degree program \u2014 a two-year program open to students who already have associate\u2019s degrees in public safety \u2014 offers students a chance to dive deeper into all-hazard emergency management and administration.<\/p>\n
The cohort consists of a mixture of students who recently graduated from one of the school\u2019s associate programs, but also ones who are currently employed as lifeguards, firefighters, sheriff\u2019s deputies or police officers in local communities.<\/p>\n
Officials said some have coordinated with their agencies and are receiving stipends and tuition support, while others are funding their education through financial aid, veterans\u2019 benefits or paying out of pocket. The cost for the 50-unit program is roughly $9,200,\u00a0plus books.<\/p>\n
High tech<\/p>\n
The cohort began their program last week at SDG&E and spoke with a meteorologist about the impact of climate change, meteorology, disaster response and recovery, officials said.<\/p>\n
Before that, at the college, a simulation led by Cal Fire Capt. Joe Ekbald involved him using an iPad to control a digital map projected onto a tabletop sandbox. The map showed a specific geographical region \u2014 including the area\u2019s topography, neighborhoods, streets and even traffic patterns.<\/p>\n
With the flick of the finger, Ekbald could illustrate for his students a digital emergency, such as fire burning through a rural area, simulating how fast a blaze would spread based on a particular weather pattern in a certain community. The program can also be used to simulate other disasters, like a dam burst in a mountainous area, predicting what valleys would be flooded, what roads would be congested and what homes would need to be evacuated.<\/p>\n
Darren Hall, the fire technology director at the college, said the simulator was one of many tools the students will engage with during the program, while also learning from experts and taking a variety of courses, ranging from disaster policy to emergency preparedness to communication.<\/p>\n
\u201cFEMA has identified the hazard risk to our community, and San Diego County is 16th in the nation,\u201d Hall said. \u201cAnd this program was designed to let our students get out there after they finish their program and hit the ground running.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For most of her adult life, Erika Tello, a 21-year U.S. Navy veteran, has been a firefighter at…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":191392,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,5295,407,1370,728,50,3549,3550,7264,7289,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-191391","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","12":"tag-education","13":"tag-latest-headlines","14":"tag-local-news","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-san-diego","17":"tag-san-diego-county","18":"tag-sandiego","19":"tag-top-stories-sdut","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115128965812674292","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}