AVC FIREFIGHTERS ENROLL IN BATTLE AGAINST BLAZES.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Among the 11,000-plus firefighters battling blazes from San Diego to the San Bernardino Mountains are some 20 student firefighters from Antelope Valley College.

The students, ages 18 to 31 and trained in wilderness firefighting as part of the college's Fire Technology Program, were put on a shorthanded ``hot shot'' fire crew and assigned individually to reserve fire engines being brought out of storage to fight the brush fires.

``I got a phone call this morning from one of them, who said they were being sent up to Santa Clarita to try to keep the fire from crossing the freeway,'' associate professor Karl Smith, who oversees the program, said Wednesday.

The student firefighting crew was established two years ago and its members have fought blazes in the Angeles and Sequoia national forests and even went to Texas to help search for debris from space shuttle Columbia.

Student firefighters are paid $9 or $10 an hour for what usually are 16-hour days of hard, dirty work, Smith said.

The college's firefighting program combines classroom instruction and hands-on training in firefighting skills - cutting fire lines, operation of fire engines and advanced tactics.

Classes are usually instructed by professional firefighters teaching part time for the college. In fact, adjunct instructor Richard McCombs, a U.S. Forest Service division chief, was called in to serve on the fire management team for the Piru Fire, the college said.

The students who were called out this week have all completed a wild-land firefighter course, which meets the basic requirements for the U.S. Forest Service firefighter qualification system, AVC officials said.

Students' goals are to land firefighting jobs, Smith said.

``The whole idea is to give these people the training to help them get the jobs,'' Smith said.