An ice rescue training hosted by the Washington Fire Department last month was the first for its new training officer Doug Sanders.

Sanders has been a volunteer on the department for 15 years and though he has assisted with many training exercises over the years this is his first year as the official training officer. The ice rescue training at Marr Park had several area agencies take part: the Brighton, Kalona, Crawfordsville, Riverside, Keota, and Winfield fire departments and Washington County Ambulance. Sanders says he would like to hold similar instructional courses in the future, “Want to try to get involved with more state funded use equipment, they have a burn trailer/work trailers, but also would like to get the counties involved with training as well. You know this is a good start of training with the whole county and the more we can train together, the better we will be in the long run as a county department as far as mutual aid calls, get comfortable with members of other departments.”

The department holds a monthly training, and they are required by the state to clock 24 hours of training a year. You can hear more from Sanders during today’s edition of the KCII Public Safety Special Edition News Magazine on air today and on the “On Demand” page.