News & Events

FRCE Seeking Stories / / / Mar 16, 2026

Remember the Stress First Aid class you have to take for FF1? The First Responder Center for Excellence is seeking first responders to share short stories or experiences for a future Stress First Aid course. What they're looking for:

• When job stress begins to show up at home or in personal interactions

• Recognizing emotional or physical stress signals and learning to respond instead of react

• The emotional toll of difficult calls—even when the outcome is considered a "success"

• Gaining perspective after feeling like you fell short and turning it into growth

• Small moments of empathy and awareness that make a big impact

• Times when someone said "I'm fine" but was actually struggling

• Lessons of resilience—how adversity helped you grow stronger

If you have a story that fits this theme, please contact Chief Dena Ali at dali@frcmail.org.

MISC UPDATES / / / Mar 1, 2026

• The Salvation Army Canteen is fully up and running with a brand-new generator!

• The mass-casualty training has been rescheduled from March 21 to the 27th. It will take place at Wausau Station 2. Get more information and register.

• Registration is open for the CoRE-EX pipeline training. The Wausau session is Apr 30.

Applications open for volunteer departments:

• Apply for 4 free sets of turnout gear! Learn more or go straight to the application form.

• Apply for a $5,000 grant through Nutella's stacks for giving back. Learn more or go straight to the application form. 

UPCOMING EM TRAINING / / / Feb 4, 2026

The training schedule for Emergency Management has been published! The following will all be held at 1000 Lakeview Dr. in Wausau.

• March 21: W-422 Multiple Casualty Incident Responder Training

• March 24-25: L0146 Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program

• April 30: CoRE-EX Pipeline Emergency Training; search for "Wausau." Registration not open yet.

• May 5-7: L0105 Public Information Basics

• June 2-4: ICS-300 Intermediate ICS for Expanding Incidents

As any other training becomes available, you'll find it on the EM training calendar—filter to the Northwest Region. We'll also add them to the training calendar on this site.

MISC UPDATES / / / Jan 18, 2026

TRAINING

• Check the updated NTC schedule. Additional sections added for FFI, HazMat Ops, and Driver/Operator-Aerial.

• Have anyone who needs Inspector or Officer? Register by Monday (Jan 19), as they may be canceled due to low enrollment.

• Check the calendar for upcoming events through Emergency Management. March: LEPC meeting, Multiple Casualty Incident Response, Homeland Security Exercise & Eval Program. April: Pipeline Response.

TO-DO

• NFIRS Data: REMINDER! You will lose access to NFIRS and your data on January 31. Go download your department's historical data if you haven’t already. There are instructions on this page.

• Has your department filled out NFPA’s Needs Assessment Survey yet? Please do! The survey is open until February 15. These reports can help inform legislation and funding.

APPLY FOR...

• $750 stipend for outreach during Home Fire Sprinkler Week (May 10-16)

• Is your department in need of laptops? NVFC & State Farm are giving away 5 laptops.

• Need funding for a wildfire mitigation project? Apply here for $10k for Wildfire Prep Day.

COMMUNICATION/OUTREACH

• This coming week is CRR Week and National Passenger Safety Week.

• January is Firefighter Cancer Awareness Month, National Blood Donor Month, and Human Trafficking Prevention Month.