The event featured volunteer instructors from departments and districts in the local area together to help lead hands-on training sessions on a variety of firefighting topics.

Some of those leading the training included Midway Fire Chief Shannon Stone, South Walton Fire District Training Chief D.J. Stone, Fort Walton Beach Fire Battalion Chief Matt Baxley, South Walton Fire District Chief Chris Kidder, Holley Navarre Fire District Battalion Chief Jason Martino, Destin Fire Rescue Battalion Chief Daniel Mills, Retired Chief Fire Officer Dennis Reilly, Escambia County Fire Rescue Training Captain Joel Richardson, and Crestview Fire Chief Josh Vargason.

Midway Chief Stone said the 850 Fireman training day is an annual tradition, started close to a decade ago when Shannon and DJ started it in Fort Walton Beach.

“We started it to give back to local firefighters,” Shannon said. “To give our local guys an opportunity to teach and share their knowledge and experience. It’s also a way to bring local firemen together.”

It’s called 850 Fireman as it centers arounds firemen in the 850-area code, which extends from Escambia County to Leon County. Shannon said 850 Fireman was the email address of his brother for a time as well and they felt the name suited the program well.

According to Shannon, this is the first time the event has been held in south Santa Rosa County.

Shannon said the training day costs nothing for the firefighters who attend.

The 2025 training day centered on four main topics: engine company operations, truck company operations, rapid intervention teams and search and rescues.

Engine company operations include stretching hoses into burning buildings and understanding the dynamics of how to navigate in hostile environment to get to the base of a fire.

Truck company operations deals with interior search and rescue, forcible entry and the “softening” of buildings, so firefighters can get in and out of buildings with more ease. Softening a building may include clearing entrances and exits, securing utilities and improving lighting.

Rapid intervention teams are firefighters trained and set aside at a fire to rescue other firefighters should they become trapped or endangered.

The last class is Search Culture. According to Shannon, the class is specifically designed to teach firefighters advanced techniques to search inside of burning buildings with limited visibility or high heat.

“Those are the primary areas we are doing hands-on training,” Shannon said. “Then throughout the day, there was four lectures being given in the classroom. (Each) about an hour.”

At Midway Fire District, training is done using Station 37’s modified Conex boxes, which are set up to resemble a building. Additionally, they used an Underwriter Laboratories (UL) prop, which is a hallway filled with glass. It was donated to Midway Fire about two years ago.

“We have multiple props being used out there,” Shannon said. “Part of the building is going to be smoked up to be used for the search drill, part of the building is going to be used for the advancement of hose line drill, part of the building they are going to be cutting into the roof to practice ventilating roofs on houses, inside the engine bay, we’ve got several forceable entry doors meant to teach firefighters how to get through different types of doors,… so there are a ton of different moving parts.”

Shannon said he and DJ would like to see the annual training be hosted by a different district each year. He said Pensacola, Crestview and Walton County are being considered for next year’s training day.