Local fire departments attended a free aerial training course to better prepare themselves for the upcoming wildfire season in Mineola.

Community leaders and local fire departments were invited to the course hosted by the Texas Forest Service and Dauntless Air, an aerial firefighting company, helping crews learn how to extinguish fires from aircrafts.

“Like most fire training, anytime there’s a resource that can be utilized on wild land fires is good to be more familiar with it, whether on how to communicate or how to be more tactfully efficient with it in support of your own fire operations,” said Dan Carrol, development advisor for Dauntless Air.

The Fire Boss 101 Training and Familiarization event was an introduction of aerial firefighting by using the Dauntless FireBoss aircraft, and was held in Mineola to provide local fire departments with training especially when extinguishing fires in large teams. Due to high winds, crews did not perform air training during the course.