Firefighters in the classroom during the course.
CAY HILL--St. Maarten now has an elite group of firefighters, with Bonaire being the only other place in the Dutch Kingdom where similar firefighters can be found. The intense course, developed by Dutch Fire Academy, also has another distinction; it was conducted entirely on island with local trainers at a nominal cost to the Fire Department.
The course “Manschap B” trains firefighters to lead small companies in the field. It was developed to bridge a gap between the role of a regular firefighter and those on the scene of a small fire/incident.
The eight-week Manschap B must be administered as a standardised course in fire departments throughout the kingdom. Bonaire and St. Maarten have taken the lead to ensure that their firehouses have the required small-group leaders fully trained and ready for the field.
What also makes the course ground-breaking for St. Maarten is the complicated level of Dutch used to administer the course. “The entire course – the practical and online classes – were all in Dutch and that level of Dutch was very difficult,” Fire Department Section Head for Fire Suppression Nico van Zand told The Daily Herald.
The local company comprised firefighters Elvin Lake, Michael Hodge, Melford Williams, Maricella Gomez, Christopher Schoop, Esmond Hodge, Sheena Rey, Karl de Palm, Giangillo Sprott, Jamal Hodge, Roger Gitterson and Jhonaton Thewet. They all mastered the course in spite of the difficult level of Dutch – a fact they, as well as course supervisor Van Zand, are extremely proud of.
Some of the firefighters in the course were of a higher rank than the course is deemed necessary for. The Fire Department opted to include other ranks in whom they identified leadership capabilities and talent.
St. Maarten’s course facilitators were firefighters Glenn Mack Nack and Eric Chase. Van Zand and Eric van Genderen from the Netherlands supervised the course.
“The beauty of it, we don’t need people from the Netherlands to help us with this course when we do it again. We won’t need the support for anyone from the outside,” said Van Zand.
Conducting the training in-house meant substantial monetary savings for the Fire Department and, by extension, taxpayers. A course of this magnitude would cost approximately US $50,000. However, administering Manschap B in St. Maarten with local trainers only took about $2,000 out of the Fire Department’s already-tight budget.
