Watertown’s new firefighter recruits will be trained in-house

WATERTOWN, New York (WWNY) - The Watertown Fire Department’s 4 new hires will be trained by those they will work alongside.

Chief Matt Timerman says they will train the new recruits in-house because the department will do a good, if not better, job than anywhere they send them.

The decision comes almost 2 years after the death of Watertown firefighter Peyton Morse, who suffered a medical emergency while training at the state fire academy in Montour Falls.

Timerman has previously said that he doesn’t have confidence in the academy because of an environment of hazing and bullying. He won’t send recruits there

“As anybody who has ever taught before, it’s one thing to know your job. It’s another thing to be able to teach somebody else to do the job and be able to answer all of those questions. So there will be a lot of benefit to our personnel, existing personnel to be the ones doing the teaching, so we are pretty excited about doing the in-house training,” he said.

Timerman says the fire department is in the process of interviewing potential recruits.

He hopes to have them start training by early April, with them being on the line by July.

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