The Illinois Fire Service Institute, part of the U. of I., will host a ceremony on Wednesday, Jan. 9 at 10 a.m. on the IFSI training grounds in Champaign. The event, held in cooperation with the Office of the Illinois State Fire Marshal, will officially release four mobile trailers containing equipment essential for firefighting skills training.
The trailers will be deployed across the state to be used by local fire departments as a no-cost training resource. In most cases, the equipment will be allocated to training volunteer fire departments where resources or budgets are limited.
The trailers were purchased with state funding secured by the OSFM. In 2018, the IFSI Cornerstone Program provided training to 11,022 students and served 936 fire departments across the state. The mobile trailers will enhance IFSI training efforts and increase the accessibility to essential firefighting skills training.
IFSI is the statutory state fire academy for Illinois. It serves as the oldest continuous fire training institution in the United States.
