State sponsored University of Missouri Fire and Rescue Training Institute offers free and tuition-based online courses. Hazardous Materials Incident Response: Awareness is an example of the free online courses available. Tuition-based classroom courses offered by the university are sometimes eligible for funding from either contracts or grants as stated by the University of Missouri website.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency: Emergency Management Institute offers a wide choice of online courses for the general public and people with emergency management responsibilities. Courses in different areas like incident management, emergency communications, disaster logistics, hazard mitigation and others are available, some award college credits. If you qualify for enrollment courses are free of charge.
Firefighter training, introduction to wildland fire behavior, basic wildland suppression orientation, intermediate wildland fire behavior and introduction to the incident command system are free online courses provided by National Wildfire Coordinating Group. A course administrator experienced in a particular course is required to provide help and final certificate at the end of the course, according to the NWCG website.
The National Fire Academy is operated and governed by the U.S Fire Administration. NFA Online is a convenient way to receive training with courses free online that are available anytime. Course progression can be tracked online as well as test results. A certificate of completion can be printed out as soon as the course has been finished. According to NFA Online, the level of difficulty for courses is on par with college and university courses. Credits for courses completed may count toward a college degree.
Private organizations like Fire Engineering Magazine offer a website with interactive webcasts, educational videos, departmental drill exercises for fire departments and animated simulations in addition to its standard publication. Continuing education credit courses are offered via the Fire Engineering University. Course available include rope-assisted search procedures in large-area structures, understanding fire ground command, changing the culture of safety in the fire service, plus more. Each course costs $25.