Monroe County Fire Rescue launches largest academy yet, adds second class this year

Monroe County Fire Rescue opened its largest academy yet with 29 trainees at the Joe London Fire Academy on Grassy Key, a strong sign that the county is trying to build its own firefighting workforce instead of relying on a tight mainland labor market.

The class, known as 26-01, was chosen from a pool of 90 applicants. It began April 21 and is scheduled to finish July 24. County officials also plan another academy in October, the first time Monroe County Fire Rescue has scheduled two classes in the same year.

That matters in a county where emergency coverage stretches across long distances and isolated communities. Monroe County Fire Rescue provides EMS service from Tavernier to Stock Island and Key West International Airport, relying on dual-certified firefighter-EMTs and firefighter-paramedics to handle medical calls, fire response and marine emergencies. Fire Chief Rene Luis “RL” Colina said he was excited about the new minimum-standards class and confident the training staff would prepare the recruits to serve the community.

The academy is a demanding pipeline. Trainees will complete 398 hours of daily physical training and classroom work, and they must master 17 performance objectives before they can sit for the State of Florida Firefighter II examination. Monroe County says the program includes Firefighter I and II courses, along with first responder training.

The training site itself is built for that work. The Joe London Fire Training Facility is on Crawl Key in the Middle Keys and is one of 43 certified firefighting training centers in Florida. County records say the classroom building, completed in 2017, cost $1.96 million and measures 5,000 square feet. The site also includes a training tower and a burn building. It is named for Joe London, Monroe County’s fire marshal from 1984 to 2003.

The academy comes as Monroe County continues to wrestle with staffing pressure. In 2021, the department received a $5.6 million FEMA SAFER grant to add 24 firefighter positions and bring five understaffed firehouses from three firefighters per shift to four. County reports at the time said staffing would rise from 120 full-time firefighter positions to 144 starting Feb. 27, 2022.

Recent academy classes show the county has leaned on local recruiting before. A 2022 class graduated 25 recruits after more than 500 hours of training, and a 2021 class included 30 trainees, 26 of them Monroe County residents. But turnover has remained a problem, including the loss of 10 firefighters to higher-paying mainland jobs.

Colina, who was confirmed as acting fire chief in December 2024 after serving as deputy chief, is now leading the effort to steady the ranks. The second academy this year signals a county strategy built around one clear goal: keep trained firefighters coming in before the next storm, the next wreck or the next medical call tests the system again.