About 

   30 years ago, a group of emergency responders from varied response disciplines, founded the Colorado Wildfire Academy and Great Plains Wildfire College realizing the need to provide National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG), Incident Command System (ICS), and other quality emergency management courses.

   Since its inception these colleges and academies have delivered training to over 18,000 students. After the events of September 11th, 2001, the board has constantly modified the curriculum to meet the ever changing requirements of fire, emergency medical, law enforcement, and other emergency management agencies and personnel. The value of incident management training has been reinforced numerous times with unprecedented fire seasons, the Columbia Shuttle Recovery and Hurricane’s Ivan, Katrina and Rita respectively.

   In 2007, to address the future training needs of emergency management, the board voted to adopt a single moniker to express our long-term commitment to a diverse curriculum of quality training. Therefore, the official name was changed to read the Colorado Wildland Fire and Incident Management Academy (CWFIMA) and it will become the over–all umbrella of the Academy and College. We believe to sustain the quality and diversity of education, the name change to CWFIMA would more correctly describe the basis of our updated mission.

Month/Year Location No. of Classes Duration No. of Participants June 1994 Black Forest 5 3 days 90 June 1995 Eagle 10 5 days 225 June1996 Buena Vista 20 6 days 600 June 1997 Leadville 29 7 days 700 June 1998 Gunnison 29 7 days 775 June 1999 Cortez 33 7 days 900 June 2000 Salida 35 7 days 860 June 2001 Montrose 49 7 days 1160 June 2002 Alamosa 44 7 days 1005 June 2003 Alamosa 41 7 days 971 June 2004 Carbondale 43 7 days 1078 June 2005 Montrose 44 7 days 840 June 2006 Cortez 43 7 days 823 June 2007 Alamosa 39 7 days 809 June 2008 Gunnison 37 7 days 720 June 2009 Montrose 32 7 days 648 June 2010 Canon City 30 7 days 525 June 2011 Frisco 30 7 days 474 June 2012 Alamosa 27 7 days 441 June 2013 Montrose 28 7 days 412 June 2014 New Castle 34 7 days 577 June 2015 Salida 26 7 days 440 June 2016 Gunnison 26 7 days 478 June 2017 Alamosa 29 7 days 418 June 2018 Salida 29 7 days 484 June 2019 Montrose 29 7 days 532 June 2020 New Castle Cancelled June 2021 New Castle 16 5 days 269 June 2022 Salida 20 5 days 311 June 2023 Alamosa 25 5 days 369