Catoosa Fire Department Celebrates 'Fire 1' Class Graduation

The Catoosa Fire Department celebrated its first Fire 1 Class in more than 10 years.

Fire 1 is the class that teaches firefighters basic knowledge and strategy of firefighting.

Catoosa Fire said all but one of the members of the class were volunteer firefighters.

Most of the graduates from this year’s class went through the training while also working day jobs.

“Some of them are welders, some of them are electricians,” said James Norvel, the Fire Equipment Operator for the Catoosa Fire Department. “So after their day job, they would come here every Tuesday or Wednesday night, 6 to 10 o’clock, and then on Saturday they would be here from 8 to 5.”

Many of the firefighters came in from departments surrounding Catoosa for the training.

“They are going to be people we work with all the time,” said Norvel. “So if we can teach them the way we do things and teach them the basic skill set, then we will be miles ahead.”

Norvel said he wants people to know how difficult firefighting truly is.

“There’s a lot of training that goes into it, a lot more than people realize,” he said. “There is a much bigger science to firefighting than people realize.”

He hopes the training helps firefighters know what obstacles they will face, wherever they are.

“They should know what they are pulling up to, and we want to be part of that,” said Norvel. “We want to be part of a training culture, and we want to help every fireman as much as possible.”

Norvel says they hope to make this class even bigger next year and include more of the cities in Rogers County.