The Norwich Fire Department has chosen three candidates to attend the Fire Academy starting this Sunday. (Photo by Catherine Sasso)

NORWICH – The Norwich Fire Department hastily moved firefighter candidates through the application process after being informed there would now be open fire academy.

For months the Norwich Fire Department has been short staffed, but with the spread of the corona virus, there have not been any active Fire Academies to train new staff. That is until a few weeks ago when Fire Chief Jan Papelino was informed an academy was opening, and it was opening soon.

"I can tell you this has been a whirlwind selection because the academy came up quickly. We got notified a couple of weeks ago about the academy. They thought they weren't going to have enough people, so they called a lot of departments that had expressed interest and asked if they were interested. Of course we said we were," said Papelino.