CLINTON, S.C. (WSPA) – Greg James is using his three decades of experience as a City of Clinton firefighter for something that can be handed down to the next generation.
James will reach 30 years as a Clinton firefighter in September on both a full-time and volunteer basis.
He also has more than a decade of experience as a member of the South Carolina Fire Marshal’s Office.
Now, he’s teaching a Career and Technology Education class at Clinton High School. The course is firefighting and his students are in for a big surprise when the class begins.
“Oh, we just going to have fun and play with fire hoses, and squirt water and the gear’,” is the way James describes some of those new students. “They don’t realize there’s a lot of book stuff.” The written tests can have one hundred questions.
There is physical training too.
James puts his students through something he calls a two-minute drill.
“They have two minutes to put on all their fire gear, their air pack, their CBA. And be breathing completely dressed in less than two minutes,” James said. “Those boys and girls get real competitive with it.”
He tells us there are openings for full and part-time firefighters at departments in this area and across South Carolina.
Many students who leave his class will be ready to work for those departments if they choose.
“If they don’t want to do it as a full-time job, they can still volunteer for their fire department in the district they live in,” James tells 7NEWS.
James grew up in the city and attended Clinton High School.
So how long does this veteran firefighter, who is still a part-timer with the Clinton Fire Department, plan to stick around as a teacher?
“Probably until I can’t walk anymore.”
