Common Questions
Will Polk State College accept individual, 45-hour fire courses for credits?
No fire course(s) or fire course(s) transcript will be accepted! This is a hard-and-fast rule that applies to these fire courses.
Fire science courses are only articulated into Polk State credits if the individual attains the Florida Bureau of Fire Standards and Training Certifications or a combination of these State Certifications as listed in the catalog (i.e., Fire Officer I (new version), Fire Officer I (old version), Fire Officer II, Fire Safety Inspector I, Fire Safety Inspector II, and Investigator (new version) or Investigator I (old version) and the elective of 3 credits for Minimum Standards – “Certificate of Compliance”). These State certifications are verified by Pearson Vue or a similarly approved third-party testing service; therefore, no individual fire courses are accepted by transcript.
The student must bring the originally issued state certification (as listed above) to the Winter Haven Campus Administration Building (WAD). The certification is copied and placed into the student’s record, and the original certification is returned to the student. Articulation credit is provided at no cost to the student.
Note: In 2022, the Florida Bureau of Fire Standards and Training discontinued the practice of automatically issuing a printed certificate; however, a student may specifically request a printed certificate. Polk State College verifies the fire certificate by accessing the student’s state fire records at the Fire College Department of Insurance Continuing Education (FCDICE), State of Florida Bureau of Fire Standards and Training. The student and FCDICE must coordinate to allow access to records. Information about these certifications is available at the Florida Bureau of Fire Standards and Training website (http://www.myfloridacfo.com/Division/SFM/BFST).
