CFPD Volunteers Complete the Calaveras County Fire Academy

Copperopolis Fire Protection District volunteer firefighter Jonathan Villanueva and Andrew Ritchie completed the 2011 Calaveras County Firefighter Academy. The academy is a 19 week course that is designed to give the fire candidate or new recruit all the basic certifications and courses required to function as a California Firefighter.

Johnathan Villanueva

Upon successful completion of the Firefighter Academy Jonathan and Andrew received:
Firts Responder
Professional Rescuer CPR and AED
Confined Space Awareness
Haz-Mat First Responder Operational
Fire Controll III
S-103, S-131, S-190

Becoming a volunteer with CFPD happened at the perfect time in Jonathan's life. His parents had just bought a home in Copper and Jonathan was a volunteer with Columbia FD livng in the dorms. He was prompted to fill out an application and the rest is history. For one short period of time, due the lack of pay for his internship at CFPD Johnathan interned with Murphys. But the CFPD Board just recently approved funding for an intern program in Copper and so Jonathan is happy to be "back home."

"I really enjoy being here," he said, explaining that each day he learns something new or reviews something so that he "can be a better firefighter for this district."

When he first began volunteering, all training was organized and coordinated by training officer Engineer Nick Maness, but as time wears on he and the other intern candidates find that thier input on training is welcomed. "I like being a sponge, getting all the experience I can, which sometimes requires refreshing." Stressing that repetitiveness is imperative to a firefighters training, allowing them to be prepared for every emergency, with training fresh in their minds.

Training officer Engineer Nick Maness had some pretty impressive things to say about Jonathan:

"Jonathan Villanueva has been a huge asset to the Copperopolis Fire Protection District. Jonathan has been with us since May 2010 and started volunteering his time as a fulltime unpaid intern in December 2010 and continues to serve on a fulltime unpaid shift today. During his time as a Volunteer Intern he has spent approximately 2,000 hours at Station 1 on A shift performing all the duties and functions of a fulltime firefighter, additionally he has logged over 500 hours of training both classroom and hands on. Jonathan is a prime example of what we look forward to in the future of our Fire Service his retention and skills are only surpassed by his eagerness to better himself and love for the profession. We are lucky to have personnel as passionate and loyal as he has been in just one short year."

By, Charity Maness