Community, Industrial Safety and Fire Awareness Courses

County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service offers a full range of community and industrial safety and fire awareness courses - for examples of these courses, see the list which follows on the bottom of this page.

For a full course programme or information about how our courses can be tailored to meet your needs, please telephone 0191 3324335 or 3324229 or e-mail ServiceHQ@ddfire.gov.uk.

Fire Service Training

This section provides details of our Fire Service training opportunities and the courses we run. For example, firefighter and breathing apparatus training. Use the links on the right hand side to navigate through our courses.

Retained Training

Retained firefighters play a vital role and their training is divided into various stages culminating in a two year probationary period. This training is carried out at the firefighter’s local fire station or at the FireService Training Centre.

Pre-Induction Course

This training covers the organisation of the Fire Service, conditions of service, health and safety, hose drills, knots and lines, hand signals and ladders.The training is carried out at the applicant’s local fire station and prepares them for the retained induction course.

Retained Induction Course

This training takes place at the Fire Service Training Centre and helps the student develop the knowledge, skills and understanding that they need to safely and competently assist at operational incidents as part of a firefighting crew.The course covers more advanced hose drills, manual handling, appliance drills, ladders, road traffic accident procedures, first aid and incident command systems. The training culminates in practical assessments to ensure that all of the course objectives have been achieved. Students are constantly mentored and encouraged to keep personal development plans.

Competency to Ride Certificate

Following more station based training the students are assessed on their competency to ride which covers all of the areas they have covered in their training. Successful completion of this assessment allows the student to start riding an operational fire appliance and attending incidents.

Breathing Apparatus Training

Retained Firefighters then progress on to more advanced training in order that they can wear specialist breathing apparatus sets as part of their role. This training is delivered at the Fire Service Training Centre and is designed to give the students an in-depth knowledge of breathing apparatus, compartment fires and fire behaviour.

Probationary Period

Throughout the remaining two years of the firefighters probation students are given more quality training and development in order to ensure that they are highly skilled and capable of dealing with all of the challenging situations they will encounter throughout their Fire Service careers.

Driver Training

Fire Service drivers are trained to the highest standards in order to ensure they can respond to emergency situations safely and with a level of urgency that fits the incident.

It takes approximately eighteen months for a fire service driver to progress from a car licence (category B) to hold full Emergency Fire Appliance driving status.

The potential drivers are assessed constantly over this period to ensure that they have the necessary knowledge, skills and attitude required of such a responsible position.

Drivers often have to under go further training to drive some of the specialist appliances in our fleet of vehicles. These specialist vehicles include Aerial Ladder Platforms, Heavy Rescue Vehicles, Foam Tenders, an Environmental Protection Unit and a Line Rescue Unit.