MIDLAND, Texas — It was an exciting Friday for the Midland Fire Department as they held their promotional ceremony for a few members climbing up the ranks.
Firefighters and family members celebrated promotions to engineer and captain.
After months of training and test taking, members were able to cross the stage and enter a new part of their careers at the fire station.
Midland Fire Chief Charles Blumenauer told NewsWest 9 what kind of training engineers and captains have to go through in order to earn this honor.
"Individuals that are promoted to engineer need to take a written test that not only covers basic book knowledge of firefighting, but hydraulics," Chief Blumenauer said. "Firefighters pumping at a fire, there is math to be done. It was always said to us in school that 'you'll never use that math again', but you will use algebra if you are going to pump a fire truck. Captains, they've already been through that engineer process, but now they had to go through some more training. More educational stuff to understand the incident command system much better."
Chief Blumenauer tells NewsWest 9 that the future is bright at the Midland Fire Department and the newly promoted engineers and captains continue to pave the way.