The Jefferson County Media Fire Academy is a taste of what recruits go through to become firefighters. What would take 40 weeks for them is being condensed into just three days for me. By the time it's over, I will have experienced a "flashover" fire in a training facility and crawled into a burning structure to see what that is like, too.

The first question a TV producer will ask a photographer covering a fire is, "IAre there any flames?" In other words, how big, how newsworthy of a fire is it? The good news for local residents is that most times the firefighters don't give us too much of a chance to shoot video of flames because they are so effective in getting fires under control.

I will be sure to bring you flames when my fire experience airs on WHAS11 News, but I also need to convey a sense of how much classroom time and education goes into training. On Day 1 of our training, about seven of our nine hours was spent on education: fire prevention, safety and accountability, helicopter scene safety, incident management with national guidelines post 9-11, and our PPE's, or personal protective equipment.

Most enlightening is the military approach to firefighting and the need for an Incident Commander with a command staff to coordinate each effort. You might think of firefighters as a bunch of gung-ho guys who can't wait to run into a burning building. But, I am learning that a professional firefighter approaches his job as a science, with deliberate decisions to ensure safety.

Stay tuned.. as I try to get my PPE on (including breathing appartus) in under two minutes!