With the new Wildfire Management Training Centre facility up and running, training courses are ongoing as the wildfire season dies down.

Kyle Young, forest protection assistant for the Merritt Fire Zone, said the firefighters will likely be laid off for the fire season at the end of the month, depending on fire activity — which has been slow in the Merritt Fire Zone lately.

“It’s been pretty quiet,” Young said.

The ICS 300 course is ongoing at the Merritt Fire Zone, Fire Information Officer Kayla Pepper told the Herald.

The course establishes lines of supervisory authority and formal reporting relationships. There is unity of command as each position and person within the system has a designated supervisor.

There is also the National Ignition Specialist course taking place next month. That course is designed to provide a standard curriculum for all ignition specialists in Canada. The curriculum for this course involves aerial ignition equipment operational training, ignition approval processes and operating procedures, checklists and restrictions.

Baseball tourney this weekend

The Wildfire Management Branch will hold its annual forestry services Trevor Schmidt Memorial baseball tournament on Friday and Saturday at Central Park.

Seven teams from around Merritt and a team from Kamloops will participate in the tournament.

Cents getting firefighting training

Next week, firefighters at the new Merritt Wildfire Training Centre will be cross-training with the Merritt Centennials as part of National Forest Week.

Young said next Tuesday the firefighters and the hockey players will meet at the new facility before heading out to camp in the field outside the former Nicola Fire Base.

There, the Cents and firefighters will engage in some team-building activities and some fitness training. Young said they will participate in some firefighting training exercises, such as carrying gear up a hill and a simulation of the firefighters’ fitness test.

The two teams will work together on the Tom Lacey Legacy Trail for the remainder of the day on Wednesday. He said they have about two-and-a-half kilometres of the trail complete so far.

Young said he thinks the hockey players may be surprised at what it takes to be a firefighter, and hopes it encourages some of them to consider applying to be firefighters in the future.