Come Saturday morning, Greenville Fire-Rescue will have nine new firefighters ready to use the skills they learned during a six-month academy.

Pitt Community College's Greenville Fire and Rescue Academy will hold its graduation Friday afternoon on PCC's campus, the second class to locally complete training in both firefighting and emergency rescue skills.

Greg Eans/The Daily Reflector (ENLARGE)

Greenville firefighters ignite a room in the front of a house on Douglass Avenue Wednesday. At top, firefighter trainees douse the blaze as part of Pitt Community College's Greenville Fire-Rescue Academy.

SLIDESHOW Flip through our gallery of shots from this week's firefighting exercise.

Eric Griffin, battalion chief for safety and training, said the collaboration with PCC has been a great asset in the department's training program.

"For 10 years, we sent students to either Wilson Tech or Nash Community College for their training," he said. "Being able to work with the college the past two years has been great; we've created a very good relationship with them."

Through the program, the new firefighters learned techniques ranging from basic skills involved with using the trucks, hoses and nozzles all the way to using thermal imaging technology to locate people or animals who may be trapped in a fire.

The firefighters faced one of two final tests Wednesday as they worked on a live burn designed to simulate a house fire.

"We first find a structure that is appropriate, the city usually helps us, and then we prepare it by using wheat straw and placing different things inside the house that would give the impression of furniture like you would find in a house," Griffin said.

Griffin said that these burns double as a method of evaluation and also a personal challenge for each participating firefighter.

"This really serves to reassure the recruits that they have the skills," he said. "You can go through training and go over things in your mind, but until you face that live fire you don't really know how you're going to react."

Wednesday's burn, which took place at an abandoned home on Douglas Avenue, involved a wood-frame structure. A burn scheduled for today on Vanderbilt Lane will involve a brick structure. Brick buildings are a greater challenge, Griffin said.

"The recruits will go under a more rigorous exercise with that, they will really be able to feel that heat, the fire inside that structure will burn at close to 1,000 degrees," he said.

These two burns will give the trainees an idea of what they will face when they respond to future calls, but Griffin cautioned against them getting too set in their ways.

"Every fire they will see is different," he said. "There are just so many different factors that go into it, wind speed and other weather conditions, that make each fire very unique."

Once the firefighters complete their training they can work full-time, Griffin said.

"We feel they're prepared," he said. "As of Saturday, they will get on a shift as a full-time firefighter and will be trained to respond appropriately when they are called."