By Steve Klamkin WPRO News

The ranks of the Providence Fire Department grew by 32 new members Wednesday, with the graduation of the department’s 53rd training academy, witnessed by family and friends at the Rhode Island Convention Center.

Unlike training academies of the past, this was the department’s first ever “lateral” academy, providing six weeks of training for applicants drawn from other fire departments who had already undergone the traditional, six-month training academy.

“It reduces the time in which we have to train someone, so we condense it,” said Providence Fire Chief Derek Silva. “We can get them on quicker and alleviate some of the burden on the other firefighters.”

Mayor Brett Smiley, who administered the oath of office to the new firefighters noted, “a couple of guys came from Salesville (Fire District), which is a village in Lincoln. They don’t have the AMP (Amica Mutual Pavilion), or Trinity (Repertory Company), or PPAC (Providence Performing Arts Center) or high-rises, or a marine unit. So, they’re are specialty units and infrastructure that we have in the capital city that don’t exist anywhere else in Rhode Island, so we want to make sure that they know how to do the job here in the capital, densest urban environment in the state.”

The additional 32 firefighters brings the department’s compliment to 392, said Chief Silva. Both he and the mayor have suggested the department might run another, more traditional fire academy, perhaps next spring, depending on budgetary considerations.

“The goal is to have another academy that comes on in the next fiscal year,” Silva said.