College Has the Answers to Burning Questions : Education: Rancho Santiago has an international reputation for providing top-flight training for firefighters.

When one of his firefighters needed additional training, Haraldur Stefansson, fire chief of the U.S. Naval Air Station at Keflavik, Iceland, knew exactly where to send him: Rancho Santiago College.

If 5,000 miles seems to be a long way to travel for training at a fire academy, Stefansson believes that Rancho Santiago’s program is well worth it. “The reputation that it has with us is very, very good.”

Stefansson is one of many fire officials across the United States and overseas who rank the college’s fire academy as one of the best anywhere. The 26-year-old program, which has long been a model for programs as far away as Australia, offers in-depth classroom training as well as hands-on experience in realistic settings.

By the time recruits graduate from the 13-week academy, they are certified to fight fires, respond to hazardous materials spills, perform rescue operations and provide emergency medical care.

For Stefansson, whose country has no such academy, sending his firefighter to Rancho Santiago’s academy was an easy choice.

“The main reason was the curriculum they offered (which covered) the various behaviors of fires. (It provides) the academic training and scientific knowledge of what really happens in a fire and how to prevent it,” he said.

“I highly recommend the academy to anyone,” said Sigmundur Eythorsson, 35, of Iceland.

After completing the academy last year, he has been studying at Oklahoma State University to get an advanced degree in fire technology and safety.

“I chose Rancho’s fire academy because it had the highest standards on the West Coast,” Eythorsson said.

Santa Ana Fire Chief Allen (Bud) Carter, who chairs the college’s Fire Service Advisory board, said that while many of the several dozen fire academies nationwide offer similar classes and hands-on training, Rancho Santiago has the unusual advantage of being closely linked with county fire agencies for constant feedback.

Fire officials describe precisely what graduates need to know and what tasks they must be able to perform and the college immediately adapts the curriculum to fit those needs. As a result, about 80% of its graduates find jobs in the highly competitive job market within two years, academy training officers said.

California State Fire Marshal Ron Coleman praised the program for its pioneering curriculum.

“I don’t know of a single fire college that works harder at producing a quality program than Rancho, and I have literally traveled all over the world looking at training programs in England, New Zealand, Australia, Denmark and Germany,” he said.

Early this year, the academy became the first one to be accredited by the State Fire Marshal’s Office as a regional training facility. As such, it is authorized to create and run its own pilot programs and test firefighters’ skills on the state’s behalf, Coleman said.

Rancho Santiago’s influence can be seen in programs throughout the United States, he said, adding that the college “has been a leader in programs for so long it’s hard for me to visualize that there are people who haven’t been affected by it.”

Although the college has offered fire-related classes since the late 1950s, the academy was created in 1967 in response to fire officials’ concerns that firefighters were not being trained to a predictable standard. At the time, firefighters in urban areas often had as little experience in fighting wildfires as their rural counterparts had in attacking blazes in skyscrapers.

Now, recruits are certified to show their proficiency with a variety of skills, said Richard Keller, deputy chief in charge of the basic fire academy.

“Citizens of the agency they work for are getting a well-trained person who can fill the bill immediately rather than getting someone who needs on-the-job training,” he said.

Before, most departments countywide trained recruits at their own fire academies, during which time the salaries of the instructor and recruit were paid even though they were not fighting fires.

Now, most recruits pay their own way through the academy as well as the prerequisite fire technology college classes, at a cost of about $3,000. Fire officials estimate that the savings to taxpayers through the current system is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars a year countywide.

At the academy, recruits get a realistic look at the job for which they train. The men and women exercise, attend classes and do hands-on training each day starting at 6 a.m. They often don’t finish until more than 12 hours later. For added realism, the college maintains its own firetrucks, hoses, ladders and other equipment, including a state-of-the-art building designed to be set on fire with trainees inside.

On one recent hot afternoon, 35 recruits from the 88th Basic Fire Academy underwent rescue training at a facility in Buena Park.

The recruits, who were all men, wore shirts emblazoned with a cartoon firefighter surrounded by flames and a Biblical quotation: “When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned. Nor shall the flames scorch you.”

One by one, the men climbed up the stairs of a five-story cement tower and poked their heads out the top window from which they would exit and rappel to the ground on ropes.

When his turn came, Chris Coates, 23, of Huntington Beach, climbed out the window for his first experience with rappelling. Gripping a rope that was tethered above, he leaned back until he was parallel to the ground. He then took a deep breath and pushed off from the tower with his feet and, releasing rope in short bursts, bounced his way to the bottom.

Unstrapping his harness later, he said: “I was pretty nervous at first. Learning how to do it is pretty exciting.”

He and his classmates are due to graduate in November and most plan to seek jobs immediately afterward.

For Coates, the reason he wants to become a firefighter is simple: “It’s rewarding, and every one I’ve talked to said they never regret going to work.”