Nearly 100 volunteer firefighters and instructors come together for three days of training in Buxton

For the third year in a row, volunteer firefighters from Dare County, Hyde County, and the rest of the state came together for an intensive three days and 30 hours of training in Buxton.

The First Due Operations school, which was hosted by the Dare County Association of Fire Officers and sponsored by the College of the Albemarle and the Cape Hatteras Electric Cooperative, brought together roughly 60 students and 30-40 instructors, with cycles of drills to ensure that firefighters could respond to any emergency call.

The course featured training on fire attack tactics, primary search operations, forcible entry tactics, ladder deployment, and ventilation tactics, with staff from Charlotte and Asheville fire departments, and students from Hatteras, Frisco, Buxton, Avon, Rodanthe, Roanoke Island, Nags Head, Colington, Kill Devil Hills, Kitty Hawk, Duck, Ocracoke, Currituck, Swansboro, and Indian Beach.

In previous years, the bulk of the training took place at the designated Buxton burn building, which is a brick structure near the old Buxton Fire Station that is designed to mimic real-life fire responses.

This year, however – and thanks to a generous donation from Buxton resident and volunteer firefighter Jarvis Williams – students and instructors were able to hone their skills in a much more realistic environment.

Williams donated a Buxton home that is on the edge of demolition to the training school, where multiple drills were conducted over the course of three days.

The three-story home, which was built in 1928, had been unoccupied for roughly a month, and instructors used smoke machines, forcible entry door training props, and other tools to simulate a real emergency.

“Normally, the training just takes place at the burn facility, but this year, we had the opportunity to be able to use this house,” said Hatteras VFD Deputy Chief and lead organizer, Cameron Whitaker. “It’s great for us, because if someone goes into the burn building five or six times, they learn the layout of the building, whereas this house provides opportunities for the instructors and the students who don’t know the building to accomplish more skills.”

“It’s more of a real-life scenario,” he added. “It allows us to train in an environment that we don’t typically get to train in.”

The training was constant for the duration of the school, which ran from Friday through Sunday, but the roughly 100 participants had opportunities to pause and mingle during daily lunch breaks.

Dare County Commissioners Mary Ellon Ballance, Mike Burrus, Chairman Bob Woodard, and Vice Chairman Steve House also stopped by during the three-day school to see the county’s firefighters as they rotated through training sessions at both the Buxton home and the Buxton burn building.

“We were invited to come down and watch them train, and it was very impressive to watch them at work,” said Woodard.

“And it’s great that they’re able to work together, and get to know everybody,” added Ballance. “Down here, all the fire departments work together when there’s a big [fire] like the recent one at Manteo Furniture. With [training like this], they can build relationships with each other, and they’ll know each other on the scene.”

House, who was a training officer throughout his emergency services career and a member of the Southern Shores VFD, said that routine training was a necessity, even for the most seasoned firefighters.

“I was in the department for a long time, and we would always train with other departments. We would know each other’s equipment and their personnel,” said House. “There is a standard training that every firefighter will know, but to be able to work with somebody from the other departments, you need to have that skill set as well. This [three-day school] is very beneficial for not only new firefighters, but firefighters who have been around for a while. You’re able to refresh your skills, and you also pick up something new with every class you go to.”

Deputy Chief Whitaker said that 2025’s school was one of the largest yet, although for optimal results, the annual training school tries to stick with a consistent number of students and instructors.

With the new-in-2025 addition of the donated Buxton home, however, firefighters were able to expand their training in ways that had never been offered before.

“There are things at the burn building that we just can’t do or recreate like we can at a real residence,”  said Whitaker. “Here at the house, it’s as realistic as we can make it, because there’s nothing like the real thing.”