For Immediate Release

Friday, March 4, 2016

Contact: John Guilfoil
Phone: 617-993-0003
Email: john@jgpr.net

Georgetown Firefighters Graduate from State Firefighting Academy

GEORGETOWN – Chief Fred Mitchell Jr. is pleased to announce that Firefighters Christopher Hunt and Marcos Dasilva graduated from the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy yesterday.

Hunt and Dasilva are two of the 32 graduates from the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy’s Call/Volunteer Firefighter Recruit Training Program Class 57. A ceremony was held at the Pentucket Regional Middle School in West Newbury on March 3.

Both men are Georgetown natives and started with the department in August.

“Firefighter Hunt and Firefighter Dasilva are dedicated members and will be great assets to the department,” Chief Mitchell said. “We are proud of the both of them for completing their training at the academy and we are excited to have them on board.”

The intensive nine-week state firefighting academy for municipal firefighters involves classroom instruction, physical fitness training, skills training and live firefighting practice.

Firefighters learned the basic skills they need to respond to fires, including how to contain and control them, public fire education, hazardous material incident mitigation, flammable liquids, stress management, confined space rescue techniques and rappelling.

To graduate, firefighters were required to demonstrate proficiency in life safety, search and rescue, ladder operations, water supply, pump operation and fire attack (ranging from mailbox fires to multiple-floor or multi-room structural fires).

The remaining 30 graduates, 29 men and one woman, represent fire departments in Boxford, Groveland, Ipswich, Lynnfield, Merrimac, Middleton, Newbury, Newburyport, Rockport, Rowley, Wenham, West Newbury, and Westford.

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