MOSES LAKE — The Columbia Basin Job Corps Center officially cut the ribbon on its Advance Training Wildland Fire Fighting facility at 8331 Forbes Street in Moses Lake on Wednesday.

“I’ve always talked about Columbia Basin (Job Corps Center) being the hidden gem,” said Center Director Mike Rios. “As we know, you can always get your foot in the door with the education, but it’s that specialized training that’s going to set you aside to take part in those opportunities out there. This is what our (students) are doing right now.”

The facility is a little ways from the main Job Corps campus, on Forbes Street just off 22nd Avenue Northeast. It used to be a welding training center, Rios said, and the facilities maintenance, plaster and carpentry students remodeled it into a home for the new Advanced Fire Management Program.

The program began for the first time April 1, said instructor Jacob Kovolitsky, and the cohort of seven students are part of something new and innovative. There are two other advanced wildfire programs in Job Corps, he said, one at the Trapper Creek center near Darby, Mont., and the other at the center at Collbran, Colorado. Those programs have been going for about two years, he said.

Some of the students have already gained experience in the Job Corps militia program, which allows students to gain basic firefighting experience while pursuing one of the center’s other trade programs, Kovolitsky said.

“We would like them to come with militia time from one of the other 24 centers and have some type of fire experience coming in,” he said. “That way, they're a little bit more invested and wanting to more of this and understand the physical goals that they have to invest into.”

One of the students with militia experience is Jacob Petersen, who transferred from Fort Simcoe Job Corps Center in White Swan for the Moses Lake-based training program.

“I don't know, I just kind of fell in love with it,” Peterson said. “I liked the work aspect; it was fast-paced. Being a firefighter was kind of something I wanted to do.”

Petersen went through the heavy equipment operation program at Fort Simcoe as well, so he has two skills under his belt.

“Honestly, at first, I just came here to join the union in carpentry,” said Jesus Montes, of Yakima. “But after a while, they took me out on assignments, and the more I started doing it, the more I started to fall in love with it. I love jobs that are physically demanding, so I was like, ‘Oh, this is something that's obviously going to challenge me a lot. This is something I want to do.’”

Ryan Anderson came a long way to do his advanced training. Originally from Richmond, Va., Anderson transferred from Flatwoods Job Corps Center in Coeburn, Virginia, about an hour away from the Tennessee state line, he said.

“I was in Oregon last August, and one of my Job Corps staff was telling me about new advanced training opportunities,” he said. “I knew that I wanted to do fire after my first assignment. And I wanted to travel and this is the furthest from (where I was). I just wanted to see what the West Coast was like and work out here.”

Anderson may go back east or stay on this side of the country, he said, depending on where the job opportunities are.

Those opportunities are likely to be pretty plentiful, Kovolitsky said. 

“This ends up building them basically a perfect resume to give to that employer on the other side, like, ‘Hey, this is what I have, and this is the experience I have.’ Now those employers can take them and immediately use them instead of sitting them down and doing the exact same thing I'm doing. It basically cuts that all that extra work that those captains, those employees on the Forest Service side Parks Service side (Bureau of Land Management) side have to do when they get an employee.”

Joel Martin may be reached via email at [email protected].