JOINING & PROGRESSION COURSES

JOINING

Once all of the assessments have been satisfactorily completed and medical clearance has been received, you will receive an Appointment Letter detailing your commencement of employment with Wiltshire Fire & Rescue Service and a Contract of Employment will be prepared.

It is normal to get a start date approximately two weeks prior to the date of the Basic Skills Course in order to commence your induction training. This will include the issue of uniform and firefighting kit, attending lectures on Health and Safety and Fairness at Work and station familiarisation.

BASIC SKILLS COURSE

This course takes place over 10 days (2 x Mon-Fri) at our Training & Development Centre in Devizes. The aim of the course is to introduce you to the skills and knowledge required to enable you to be a safe and effective firefighter. Once you have successfully completed this course, you will be able to start attending emergency incidents.

Within the first nine months you will also have attended the following additional courses: -

Breathing Apparatus - A 10 day (2 x Mon-Fri) Initial Breathing Apparatus course.

Road Traffic Collisions - a 5 day course (Mon-Fri) on road traffic collision procedures.

TRAINING OF FIREFIGHTERS

A newly appointed retained firefighter has many training needs. The Fire & Rescue Service meets these needs by sending you on a number of training courses, which are described overleaf and you are also required to attend weekly training sessions on the fire station.

The weekly training session is called the "drill night" and takes place on a Monday or Wednesday evening normally lasting 2 hours and forms part of your contract of employment.

N.B. Please refer to the rear of this booklet to find out the drill night of your local fire station.

A detailed description of the recruitment process including the physical tests and training tips can be found on the DVD "So you want to be a firefighter?" which is available to view/borrow from your local fire station.