Ten area volunteer fire departments added 22 new firefighters to their ranks June 10 when they completed a rigorous six-month training course and received their certificates of completion at a ceremony at the Lower Macungie Township Community Center.

This was the fifth annual Bucks County Fire Academy course held twice a week for the past six months at the Allentown Fire Academy, behind the Allentown Fire Department Mack Station, at 1902 Lehigh St. near the Queen City Airport.

Rather than have the volunteers travel to Bucks County Fire Academy in Doylestown, an hour to an hour-and-a-half each way, twice each week, Lower Macungie Fire Department Chief Dave Nosal and instructor Justin Delong five years ago arranged for the Bucks County unit to come to Allentown.

The Public Safety Training unit at the Bucks County Community College provides first responder units for 11 counties in southeastern Pennsylvania with national and state level fire, rescue, emergency medical, and hazardous materials training and professional certification.

Along the way the volunteers learned life-saving and first-aid skills and how to recognize, evaluate and deal with hazardous material incidents. The Haz-Mat training covered events as small as an anti-freeze spill at a motor-vehicle accident scene, to incidents as intimidating as weapons of mass destruction.

The course was sponsored by the Lower Macungie Fire Department and conducted by the Bucks County Community College training unit. The lead instructor was Justin Delong, a state-certified contract fire educator, as well as a former deputy chief of the Emmaus Fire Department. Doug Stein, a captain with the Woodlawn Fire Department, was also a certified instructor for the course.

Delong reported this would be his final year leading the course and he was commended and thanked for being the lead instructor for all five of the Lehigh County training courses.

Nosal said the course included: building construction; basic interior firefighting skills; fire behavior; forcible entry; personal safety equipment; self-contained breathing apparatus; ropes and knots; search and rescue; vehicle fires; wildland fires; hazardous materials; as well as structural live fire sessions.

Nosal said the certification earned by the 22 candidates was portable, and those who completed the course are entered into a national database and that most states recognize the certification for fire departments in their jurisdiction.

Candidates were from the following fire departments: Eastern Salisbury, Fountain Hill, Greenawalds, Lower Macungie, Walnutport, Western Salisbury, Trexlertown, Upper Macungie, Whitehall and Dewey Fire Department, Hellertown, Northampton County.