Fire Academy Has Students Blazing With Pride

The Monroe High School girls tried not to giggle or snap their gum, and the boys tried not to bug the girls, slouch or botch a marching order.

“Above all else,” teacher Jeff Marciano told the students marching in the auditorium, “you have to always remember to take pride in the little things.”

Pride is the first step in becoming a firefighter, Marciano said Thursday, and the 42 ninth- and 10th-graders in his class want to learn how to prevent and fight fires, save lives and earn a good living when they graduate.

The students form the first class of Monroe’s Michael McComb Fire Academy, a three- to four-year program in which students learn the language and the mathematical, physical, mechanical and culinary skills needed to become a successful firefighter. The Los Angeles City Fire Department is also working with the school, providing students with mentors, tours of stations and demonstrations with arson-sniffing dogs, hydrants and hoses and on how to extinguish car fires.

The academy, one of a handful of such programs nationwide, is named after Michael McComb, a Los Angeles firefighter and a 1968 Monroe alumnus who died with two other firefighters in a helicopter crash in Griffith Park last March.

During a swearing-in ceremony this morning, which Mayor Richard Riordan, Fire Chief William Bamattre and other city officials are scheduled to attend, students will learn more about McComb, who died at age 48--leaving behind his wife, Lorne, three children and four grandchildren--while trying to save an 11-year-old girl, who also died in the crash.

At the ceremony, the would-be firefighters will stand at attention, march and raise their right hands to recite the academy’s oath:

“As a student in the Michael McComb Fire Academy and as a future firefighter, I pledge to prepare myself to serve my community, and to protect lives and property and respect the environment. Throughout my high school career, I will work to develop myself intellectually, ethically and physically to achieve this goal, dedicating myself to my future profession, firefighting.”

It won’t be easy.

Last June, an estimated 8,000 men and women took the exam to become a Los Angeles firefighter. Of those, about 1,200 qualified for 300 openings, said Assistant Chief Robert De Feo, a 39-year veteran who oversees recruiting and helped start the Monroe academy.

The job’s allure, De Feo and students say, is the camaraderie of a 24-hour job, the honor of saving lives, the fun of staying physically fit and the annual base salary, which for beginning Los Angeles firefighters ranges between $36,500 to $38,500.

“I want to be a firefighter because of all those things,” said Soraya Vargas, a soft-spoken 16-year-old who couldn’t wait to join Monroe’s academy.

Her two uncles in Mexico are firefighters. “I’ll be the first girl in my family to become a firefighter,” she said.

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De Feo said the academy, which may eventually be expanded to other schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District, benefits fire departments who want to recruit the best candidates, particularly among women and minorities. That’s why he eagerly agreed to help Monroe Principal Joan Elam when she approached him last fall about starting an academy.

The school already has a police academy, a law and government magnet, and about two dozen programs specializing in areas such as banking, nursing and culinary arts.

De Feo and Elam said they worked together to tailor the curriculum. Mathematics will focus on fractions and long division, important in hydraulics; language will emphasize bilingual reading, writing and speaking skills.

The physical-education program will offer a few traditional sports, as well as a weight room, rope climbing and instruction in scaling a six-foot wall and dragging a 150-pound dummy--both firefighter requirements.

On the lighter side, the academy will teach students how to cook meals for a group--pasta salad is a favorite--that can easily reheated or eaten on the run.

In the auditorium Thursday morning, students prepared for the ceremony and practiced showing pride.

“Stand up straight and look ahead,” Marciano said as another teacher, Dennis King,demonstrated the correct way to march and turn right--pivot with the left foot, step with the

right.

Marciano critiqued each student: “Good . . . wrong foot . . . stand up straight . . . other foot . . . “

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Some students forgot, slouching or keeping their hands in their pockets.

One girl kept taking her gum in and out of her mouth while a boy tried to hide a purple sucker.

But most students towered with pride and dignity, such as Rolando Brooks, 15, Laura Guardado, 16, and Miguel Alcantar, 15.

“I’m going to be a firefighter,” said Alcantar, a 10th-grader and the academy’s class leader. “I said to myself in the second grade, ‘I’m going to be a firefighter,’ and now I am trying to get my goal.”