The Fire Department trains every day to provide the highest quality advanced life support paramedic-level care, to safely and effectively operate in hazardous environments, and to be capable of rescuing you from any emergency.  We train for competence, and we hire and promote for genuine compassion and true character.

Annual required training covers many areas and subjects including:

• structural and wildland firefighting
• hazardous materials incidents
• emergency medical care
• auto extrication
• technical rescue (high angle/cliff, confined space, trench, structure collapse, swift water and lake rescue) 
• mass-casualty incidents
• emergencies involving utilities, pipelines, and transportation. 

Training is required for all tasks that are considered hazardous.  Targeted subjects of importance are those tasks that are considered high-risk/low-frequency. Training is scheduled monthly, quarterly, and annually to meet professional and legal requirements, and to maintain competencies, knowledge, skills, and abilities.       

There is NO STAFF primarily assigned to the Training function.  Rather, the Training Officer role is assigned to Deputy Chief Michael Alforque, who administers the Department’s training programs.  Additionally, each shift has a Special Assignment Engineer (SAE) that facilitates training for their platoon.  The SAE responsibilities are assigned to the three engineers on Truck 1. There is no additional compensation for performing this function. The training program is supported by subject matter experts within the Department.

The vast majority of training is developed and implemented in-house by SLO City Fire personnel.  Since we don't have dedicated Training staff, our approach is everyone in SLO City Fire is responsible for training. 

Currently the Department is training all personnel to respond to evolving, dynamic violent events involving firearms. The goal of this training is to enable Firefighter-Paramedics and Firefighter-EMTs to deploy deeper into the danger zone of a hostile/violent incident under force protection of police officers to quickly triage, treat, and remove viable patients. Our goal is to increase the survival rate of those with life threatening injuries by medically intervening prior to the scene being declared safe.  In coordination with law enforcement, our firefighters have trained to enter before the armed assailant has been captured or otherwise rendered no longer a threat.  Recent national events have caused us to reevaluate our tactics and accept greater risk to produce more survivable outcomes for our citizens.