By Breven Honda
Having the chance to explore a new job or hobby can lead to the best domino effect, if taken and things go the right way.
The Mesquite Fire and Rescue Department has an opportunity just like that. 
On Sept. 13, the local fire department hosted a meeting for their Explorer Program for kids and young adults aged 15-21. This explorer program gives young people the opportunity to learn about what firefighting is like as well as dive into emergency medical response.
“The whole goal of the program is to grow kids to get their interest going,” said Mesquite Fire and Rescue Department Captain Robert Ceja.
There were about 30 people, along with their families, in attendance to learn more about the Explorer Program as a handful signed up.
“We had a good turnout,” Ceja said. “Ended up signing up an additional seven explorers to the program.
“The Explorer program is an introduction, so the kids can actually get a chance to see what it’s like to be a firefighter and potentially, run some medical calls. I think it’s a great opportunity. I know we have a few part-timers and full-timers (on the fire department staff) that were once explorers that now work with us.”
During the meeting, which took place at Fire Station No. 3, Ceja took them on a station tour, including going behind the building to the training grounds, explaining what the program entails.
Although the participants need to be at least 18 years old to earn different certifications, there are ways to replicate different situations involving fire rescue and medical response without needing those certifications.
“Everything that we can do that we as firefighters are required to and train on, they will be allowed to do so: cutting up vehicles, practicing search and rescues,” he said. “They can’t go inside a live fire on call each environment because they’re not certified to do so, but we have smoke machines that we use to simulate fire conditions.
“We also teach them how to cut up cars using what the people call ‘The jaws of life,’ which is the extrication tools and equipment. Basically, anything that we can do, they’ll be taught to do so as well. Live fire inside a structure can be very dangerous. While we train to do so, it takes a lot of knowledge and supervision even for us to do it.”
Because these kids are as young as 15 years old, it means that high school kids can participate in this program.
Ceja said participating in the Explorer Program can be the precursor to discovering different opportunities down the road.
“This is just one avenue that they can explore,” he said. “We do EMS and fire, the EMS Park, and then branch out to maybe a nurse. They can be a Certified Nurse’s Assistant (CNA) that could potentially go to medical school. They can be paramedics if they want to. They can branch out in many different fields, in the fire. in the EMS Field. As far as the fire field, we do have working relationships with Beaver Dam Fire, who does a lot of wildland firefighting. So, there’s that avenue there as well.”
On the flip side, having members participate in the Explorer Program can lead to having a growth in numbers with experience in the fire department, once they become of age to be part of the firefighting staff.
According to the 2024 Mesquite Fire and Rescue’s annual report, there are around 60 people on staff, ranging from the Fire Chief to a Paramedic Firefighter and all at different stages of experience and age.
As a result, this program is a pathway to supplanting those numbers and keeping the number on staff stable.
“Giving these kids the opportunity to do this, we can then start to grow our fire department,” Ceja said. “We will be needing more paramedics in the future, more firefighters in the future, as we retire. Having the kids that are here locally that know the type of population we have, the types of build that we have, are also beneficial to us, so recruiting is also good for us.”
In addition, with these kids growing up in Mesquite and in the Virgin Valley, the experience of knowing the community can go a long way, even before joining the fire staff.
That includes knowing the terrain as well as understanding certain medical response topics, such as CPR, from this program.
“Being able to recruit kids from the valley is great,” Ceja said. “At the same time, keeping kids out of potentially bad habits or other things that can get them hurt is also great. Teaching the kids about fire safety while we’re doing all this, and then they potentially teaching someone else about what to do in case of like medical emergency or fire emergency, which keeps the rest of the community even safer.”
