Academy Dedication Gives Dream Reality
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A dream has become reality for the fire service in the United States. Last Oct. 8, the long-sought National Fire Academy was dedicated on its campus at Emmitsburg, Md.
A large audience—including Richard E. Bland, chairman of the National Commission on Fire Prevention and Control, and other members of this presidential commission that recommended the establishment of the academy in its 1973 report—heard notables voice confidence that the NFA would become instrumental in reducing the nation’s fire losses.
Predicting that the academy will play an important role in reducing these losses, Senator Warren G. Magnuson IDWash.) said that students will leave the NFA “with the ability to increase the quality of fire protection” in their own communities.
Magnuson, who might well be called the father of the academy because of his work for it in the Senate, recalled that it was “no easy battle” to locate the NFA in Emmitsburg instead of New York City and to overcome a “small but vocal opposition” that questioned even the need for a fire academy.
Referring to Senator Charles McC. Mathias (D-Md), who also was on the platform and who is a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee that Magnuson heads, he pledged, “We’re going to see that this place gets sufficient funds,” and added with a smile—“within budget restraints.”
John W. Macy, Jr., director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), brought a message from President Carter, who referred to the nation’s fire loss record and declared that “the National Fire Academy can help stem this tragic waste.”
The National Fire Academy is a section of the United States Fire Administration (USFA), which in turn is part of FEMA. Macy gave credit to Administrator Gordon E. Vickery of the USFA for placing the academy in Emmitsburg.
Macy also announced that FEMA’s Emergency Management Institute, which will train executives in the management and mitigation of disasters, will be located on the NFA campus.
Senator Mathias voiced the hope that fire fighting “will become less dangerous—less hazardous—as a result of the work at this academy.” He saw the academy’s mission as a continuation of the spirit of charity and service exemplified by the Sisters of Charity, the Catholic religious group that operated St. Joseph College in the buildings that now house the fire academy.
