Serving State, Provincial & Territorial Fire Training & Education Systems

John Cunningham, Director of Nova Scotia Firefighters School and Past NAFTD President received the Johnny G. Wislon Award at

Exclusively For Members

NAFTD 2025 Annual Conference, September 22 to 25,2025

NAFTD 2025 Annual Conference

Join with NAFTD members for networking, education, and training sessions focused on State Fire Training. Meet with exhibitors and vendors displaying the newest innovations for training academies.

The Conference will be September 22 to 25, 2025, Edmonton, Canada. Our host is Shawn McKerry of Lakeland College. Join us for a great networking and professional development event, and we will celebrate IFSI's 100th anniversary!

For more information contact kwillette@naftd.org , 774-200-7774

NAFTD Partners with NFPA To MAKE UPDATED TRAINING AVAILABLE

The North American Fire Training Directors (NAFTD), have partnered with the National Fire Protection Association® (NFPA®) to share NFPA’s updated training program for first responders and their groundbreaking virtual training program. NFPA received a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to build this training, which will enhance firefighter competency in responding to emerging distributed energy technologies and lithium-ion battery fires.

The NFPA Fire Incident Response Simulated Training (FIRST) Application offers a game-like simulated training experience designed to address renewable technology emerging hazards. This immersive program allows firefighters to train in realistic virtual scenarios, such as fighting electric vehicle and energy storage fires in residential garages. The application is based on real-world test data, enabling firefighters to engage in interactive, multi-user simulations that mirror actual incidents. This training is engineered to help improve their response times and effectiveness, ultimately enhancing public safety.

Through this collaboration, NAFTD members, who serve as the State and Provincial level directors of fire training in 64 states/provinces, can access this curriculum, at no charge, and include it in their training deliveries. This effort is supported by an Instructor Development Program provided by NFPA that provided nearly 100 NAFTD member agency instructors the background information needed to elevate their understanding of the curriculum and teaching points.

Access the free NFPA FIRST Training program.

To receive the updated Electric Vehicle and Photo Voltaic/Energy Storage System programs, contact kwillette@naftd.org

Developing State Fire Training for Canada & America

The administration of the North American Fire Training Directors is pleased to welcome you to its newly developed online undertaking. In our continuing efforts to keep our members, as well as firefighters, departments, and other interested parties, apprised of items of interest regarding the fire service in Canada and the United States, we bring you the NAFTD website.

Advanced technology is one of the most useful tools available to us to bring you the latest developments in fire training, education, legislation, and information. Updated often, this website will give you late-breaking developments in areas such as innovative training props and the latest in high-tech training.

To more easily generate information that will benefit you, we have developed a survey instrument and subscribed to a list serve that allows you to generate feedback that will allow this site to meet your needs. We look forward to hearing from NAFTD members, firefighters and officers, and other interested parties to quickly address the vital issues of today that are important to all of us.

NAFTD ADOPTS STATEMENT OF SUPPORT FOR NATIONAL FF REGISTRY

To better understand the link between on-the-job exposure to toxicants and cancer, U.S. Congress directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to create the National Firefighter Registry (NFR).

The NFR will be a voluntary registry of all U.S. firefighters, not just those with cancer. The project is being led by the CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), which has the knowledge, expertise, experience, and resources to lead this type of project. The NFR will be used to monitor and better understand cancer among firefighters in the U.S.

Participation in the NFR is voluntary. However, it is the position of the North American Fire Training Directors (NAFTD) that all firefighters—structural and wildland, career, and volunteer, active and retired, and those with and without cancer—should take part. Having broad and diverse participation is absolutely critical to the success of the NFR.

By supporting the NFR, NAFTD hopes to learn more about the health risks firefighters’ face. Information gleaned from this project will be useful to fire departments, fire service organizations, standard-setting organizations, and policy makers throughout the country.

NAFTD encourages training directors to take the following steps in anticipation of the NFR opening registration at the end of 2022:

· Advise your organization that the NFR is open to ALL firefighters, not just those with cancer.

· Encourage instructors and students to register and reassure them that the information they provide is confidential. It is anticipated that the entire registration process will take around 30 minutes for many participants. The registration process is likely to be even shorter for new recruits because of their limited work history. More information on the registration process is available at the NFR website (www.cdc.gov/NFR).

· Provide information about the NFR to instructors and students, including the QR code that will direct firefighters to the secure web portal when it launches. Communication materials will be available at the NFR website (www.cdc.gov/NFR) or upon request (email: NFRegistry@cdc.gov)

· Recommend that participating firefighters take part in follow-up questionnaires. These follow-up questionnaires may not be necessary for firefighters to register, but will likely be important for understanding risk factors and answering other important research questions.