What is CERT?

Kirkland's Community Emergency Response Team training is a FEMA-based curriculum designed to teach adults of all ages and abilities how to help themselves, their families, and their neighbors during a disaster when police, fire, and medical services are overwhelmed.

The City of Kirkland CERT Program hosts two CERT training courses a year, in the spring and fall.  Click here for more information about our current class.  

A training course consists of eight 3-hour classes, once a week for eight weeks.  Each course ends with a full-scale simulated disaster drill, complete with volunteer “victims”, during which CERTs practice their disaster response skills.

CERT Training teaches you to:

• Identify and reduce hazards at home and work
• Prepare your home, vehicles, and workplace with emergency supplies
• Understand fire behavior and put out small fires
• Conduct light search and rescue operations
• Apply basic medical and psychological techniques
• Assess and triage minor to life-threatening injuries
• Lift heavy objects off of trapped people safely
• Organize in teams using the Incident Command System