Fresno City College, a California higher education institution, is home to over 20,000 students seeking associate's degrees, including security-minded professionals interested in becoming first responders.

After years of planning, construction has begun on a new First Responders Center, a training facility for police, fire safety and emergency medical technicians (EMTs).

The new facility will include fire training structures, a scenario village for police training, simulation spaces, a running track and a driving pad.

“The ability to put all our programs on one site will allow for several things. The two most important will be the building of relationships between programs at our level and, second, being able to interact with the community as a group and not three separate programs on three campuses,” said Peter Cacossa, Fire Academy Director.