Jayden Cooper, a senior at Palm Bay High School, started working with Brevard County Fire Rescue nearly two years ago after graduating from the school’s specialized fire academy. The program teaches college-level firefighting concepts, giving students a head start on fire academy training. Cooper said the program prepared him for fire school, where he later enrolled at Eastern Florida State College’s Public Safety Institute. 'They gave me all the basic steps into fire, gave me a step ahead and got me prepared for fire school,' Cooper said. The school district announced this week that the fire academy will expand to Cocoa High School and is exploring other schools for the program. Teresa Uzel, a lead instructor at Palm Bay, said the students’ prior training made them more prepared for the fast-paced academic and physical demands of fire school. 'They already knew what type of physical activities they needed to do being in gear,' Uzel said. Timothy Owens, another Palm Bay graduate, is also working toward a career in firefighting after his family’s home burned down last year. The fire, which occurred in the middle of the night, was discovered by his dogs. 'Our dogs woke us up, woke my husband up,' Owens said. Now 18, he wants to prevent others from experiencing the same loss. Owens trained as a junior and senior in the fire academy and recently completed live fire training at Eastern Florida State College’s Fire Academy. 'Just to help other people, so they don’t have to go through the same thing I went through,' Owens said. The program’s expansion comes as school officials look to replicate the success of Palm Bay’s model, which has already produced two firefighters in its first cohort.