Inside Darley Podcast

Lou sits down with District Chief Michael Mitchell to discuss NIPSTA, young firefighters, and learning from mistakes. Mike Mitchell is a District Chief who works as a boots-on-the-ground instructor at NIPSTA. NIPSTA is a public safety training academy, that develops and provides high-quality educational programs for the training requirements of fire, police, EMS, public works, hazardous material, and disaster response personnel.  One trend Mike’s noticed is firefighters coming into the field today have less experience with basic tools. In the past, many firefighters would work a trade job and have some experience using basic tools which translated to better equipment use. This trend puts pressure on academy’s like NIPSTA to put more emphasis on tool training than in the past. Mike believes every call can be a learning experience. On a recent call, his department had to adapt to a small staging area and limited information. Despite being successful Mike notes a variety of areas they could improve includin