By MEGHANN COTTER

An intimidating silence fills a classroom of 22 recently hired Stafford County fire and rescue employees.

It's Monday morning, Dec. 4, and still dark outside.

No one is whispering.

There's little movement, besides the occasional slurp from a coffee cup.

Everyone's eyes are focused on one uniformed man, sitting on a desk in the front of the room.

Chief Charlie Freeman wastes no time getting started when the clock strikes 6.

Stafford is growing fast, he tells the class. And the Fire and Rescue Department needs to keep up.

"We have a lot of holes we need to fill, and you guys are going to fill those holes," he tells them.

Until now, Stafford's emergency service professionals have taken necessary skill classes as individuals. But all future instruction will happen twice a year through the newly created Fire and Rescue Training Academy, which Freeman and Lt. Erick Kling are teaching.

Training schools are common nationwide in larger departments that hire a lot of new people each year. Many counties in Northern Virginia provide such programs to fill vacant positions and maintain skills among employees.

Most people coming through Stafford's first class are filling new positions being funded by ambulance fees that the county started collecting in October. The remaining students will fill existing vacancies.

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