The City of Fairfax Fire Department's Chief Tom Owens has mandated that all eighty members of the Department complete the National Fire Academy's Self-Study Course for Community Safety Educators (Q118). This mandate comes after the Washington-Metropolitan Council of Government's Fire Prevention Subcommittee recommended that all recruits throughout the region complete the course as part of their initial training. Fire Chief Tom Owens firmly believes in providing our community with the best services available with the highest trained personnel. The training must be completed by March 1, 2008.

Chief Owens should be commended for taking our original initiative a step further. No doubt in my mind that Shawn Dunstan of the City of Fairfax Fire Department. played a critical role in bringing this to his Chief's attention and selling him on taking the extra step! Again, our hats off to Chief Owens for proactively implementing a program that falls right in line with the "Everyone Goes Home" 16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives (it is initiative #14)!