The online teaching and the firemen training: Portuguese case

Issues relating to the sustainability of forests is a global issue, involving governments as well as local and regional organizations and citizens. The fires that devastate every year several areas in Portugal, as well as in Europe and all over the world require new skills in order to operate on the ground, but the acquisition of skills necessary to perform their functions, requires multiple skills. However the training required to carry out their missions, rarely is compatible with the time management and the professional activities of each fireman, because most of them are volunteer. The article proposes a better knowledge about their training needs, how they would like to organize their activities and updating of knowledge, given the disparities between geographical and reconciling their professions and fire service in volunteers. However, the heterogeneity in this occupational group in terms of age, level of education, digital literacy, raises questions about the use of digital learning resources, as well as perceptions have on distance learning. Our central question was to assess whether there was or not conditions that firemen could learn in environments of e/b-learning? The achieved results allowed concluding that this professional group congregate the necessary conditions to learn in a model that combines the classroom with distance.