The country's preeminent federal fire training academy canceled classes, effective immediately, on Saturday amid the ongoing flurry of funding freezes and staffing cuts by President Trump's administration. The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced that National Fire Academy courses were suspended to allow for a "process of evaluating agency programs and spending to ensure alignment with Administration priorities," according to a notice sent to instructors, students, and fire departments. Instructors were told to cancel all travel until further notice, the AP reports.
Firefighters, EMS providers, and other first responders from across the country travel to the NFA's Maryland campus for the federally funded institution's free training programs. "The NFA is a powerhouse for the fire service," said Marc Bashoor, a former Maryland fire chief and West Virginia emergency services director with 44 years of fire safety experience. "It's not a 'nice to have.' It is the one avenue we have to bring people from all over the country to learn from and with each other. If we want to continue to have one of the premier fire services in the world, we need to have the National Fire Academy."
The academy, which also houses the National Fallen Firefighter's Memorial, opened in 1973 to combat a growing number of fatal fires nationwide, per the AP. At the time, the National Commission on Fire Prevention and Control envisioned it to be the "West Point of the Fire Service," according to a report from the organization. For firefighters, including those on the frontlines of deadly fires that ravaged California this year, having an essential training institution "shut down under the presumption that there's waste, fraud and abuse" has been demoralizing, Bashoor said. He said losing NFA training could make the coordinated response that prevented additional deaths and destruction in California more difficult. (Trump has suggested shutting FEMA altogether.)
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