Clinton Fire Protection District Newsletter – August 2026

“Oh, back to school, back to school to show Chief Ruosch I’m not a fool. I’ve got my lunch packed up, my boots tied tight, I hope I don’t get in a fight. Oh, back to school, back to school, back to school…”

Welcome back to the CFPD Newsletter. We hope everyone has a great start to the new school year this September. Our members at CFPD are no different. We have some students of our own heading back to the classroom.

The only difference is that we’re going to try to keep the fighting to a minimum. It’s not exactly conducive to an excellent learning environment.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get into it.

Paramedics 🔜

As we mentioned in our previous newsletter, Lt. Bill Reetz, FF/EMT Mark “Dinger” Arnold, FF/EMT Connor Jacobson, and FF/EMT Michelle De La Torre have all been accepted into paramedic school.

This is a long and challenging program, running from early January through mid-to-late June. It’s going to require a lot of time, studying, and probably an unhealthy amount of caffeine.

We hope you have all budgeted for extra energy drinks, coffee, and whatever studying apps you can find. You’re going to need them.

We are excited to see four more of our members take the next step in their EMS careers. Good luck, study hard, and remember that sleep is technically optional during paramedic school.

Probies Going to Fire 1

This fall, we will have four more members packing up their gear and taking their first classes in the fire service.

Probationary EMTs Connor Ludlum, Madison Flanagan, Kevin Dunn, and Myranda Erikson will all be starting their Firefighter 1 training.

Fire 1 is where the foundation of a firefighter's career really begins. There is a lot to learn, a lot of gear to carry, and plenty of new information to take in. We are excited to see each of them get started and earn their certifications.

Work hard, learn a lot, and enjoy the process. Congratulations and good luck!

RIT Training

From the end of July through September, our members have been working hard on Rapid Intervention Team, or RIT, training.

RIT is the team assigned to rescue a downed or distressed firefighter during a Mayday situation. A Mayday is every firefighter's worst-case scenario. While we hope we never have to deploy a RIT team for a real emergency, we train for the worst and hope for the best.

Our members have spent several training nights working through different Mayday situations, including low-air emergencies, injured firefighters, and even broken facepieces. Each scenario forces the crew to think quickly and figure out how to solve the problem with the equipment and resources available.

These are the situations where critical thinking becomes extremely important. There isn't always going to be a perfect answer sitting in front of you, and sometimes the solution requires the crew to think outside the box.

Our members have done a great job throughout this training series, and we look forward to continuing to build on these skills over the next several weeks.

Extrication Training – The Beals Experience

Also starting this month was our new extrication training series.

As we mentioned in our last newsletter, we have somewhat of an extrication guru within our ranks. Senior FF Brian Beals will be leading the training and passing along some of his experience to our members.

On Wednesday, August 26th, our newer members spent the evening getting comfortable with the tools and working through some basic extrication techniques. The goal was to give everyone a solid understanding of the equipment before moving on to more advanced techniques.

Tomorrow, as I write this, our senior members will get their turn to start cutting.

If you have a vehicle that you would like to donate for extrication training, reach out to us! We would love the opportunity to use it for training.

Your lemon can be our lemonade.

Touch a Truck

With the school year starting back up, CFPD was invited to attend the annual Touch a Truck event at Clinton Community Elementary School.

The kids had the opportunity to check out our trucks, equipment, and gear and see some of the things our members use while responding to calls. We also handed out bike helmets, pencils, stickers, and, of course, the forever-popular firefighter helmets.

The helmets were apparently such a hit that CPD Officer Konopski had to get his hands on one himself.

We had a great time getting out into the community and spending some time with the kids. Hopefully, events like this help show the next generation what their local firefighters and first responders do every day.

To Conclude Yet Another Edition...

Thank you for reading another edition of the CFPD Newsletter.

August brought plenty of training, new students, new certifications on the horizon, and another opportunity to get out into the community. As we head into the fall, we are excited to see what the next few months bring.

To all the students heading back to school, have a great year. Work hard, stay safe, and try not to give your teachers too much trouble.

We'll talk at you all again next month!