(COLORADO SPRINGS) — It’s no secret that Southern Colorado is prone to wildfires, and the Wildland Fire Department’s firefighters don’t take a beak. Fires are consistent year-round, so local firefighters always stay sharp and ready for whatever comes their way.

On Saturday, the Southern Colorado Interagency Wildland Team welcomed more than sixty new members. After a month of coursework, the newbies completed an eighty-hour course where they were trained on basic wildfire techniques to ensure they were qualified to fight a real fire.

“Today is just a combination of everything in this big, giant, thick book compressed into one day, so it’s kind of like drinking from a fire hose,” said Isaac Brisk, the Assistant Superintendent for the Southern Colorado Interagency Wildland Fire Department.

The trainees lucked out with good weather as they went through a simulated wildfire and learned weather line construction, how to read maps, and carry hoses across mountain terrain.

Fourteen agencies across Colorado participated in the training, including Fountain Fire Department and Hanover Fire Department.

“As you can see, they’re walking by, they’re putting out a progressive hose lay. There’s 400 feet of hose in that pack, and they can bring a hose and make a ‘Y’ and surround the fire and then work their way back out,” said Brisk.

More than one-hundred people volunteered at the event ages eighteen to forty-five.

“The most valuable thing taught today would probably be just teamwork. To be real honest, everybody comes in as strangers and people don’t know each other, but this is a chance for 100 people to get together and work together for a common goal, which is to train and get better at wildland firefighting,” said Jennifer Jones another firefighter.

They learned things like handlines, which is a dirt path they make around fires. The idea is that if the fire reaches that line, it will not exceed it.

“We’re doing line construction currently, but we’ll go through water ops, weather, chainsaws and then line construction like they’re doing now,” said Brisk.

Even some of the more experienced firefighters picked up a few new tricks.

“I learned about just communicating with my team effectively, listening to what the what the orders are as far as like tasks to do, so I absolutely did learn stuff today for sure,” said Jones.

They said the peak of fire season is just around the corner, as the weather begins to change, drying out brush. Fire season is usually ten weeks long but the firefighters said they will be prepared to take on anything.

“The importance of this is just to get muscle memory from the previous month of class. It sets everything in stone that we just taught them. It gets them proficient to be able to fight fire nationally and be ready when a real fire actually happens,” said Brisk.

The team is always accepting new members, those interested can head to the website, linked above.