Fairfax County CERT History

Fairfax County CERT was started in 2003 under the guidance of Derek Rowan and Bob Mizer, members of the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department who put together the initial class with a handful of students. Since then, we have expanded and enhanced that class over the past twenty years. While most CERT organizations across the country teach two basic classes per year, we now teach about eight to ten per year. As of June 2024, we have taught around 200 classes to over 3500 members of the public.

Fairfax County CERT members currently provide an average of over 16,000  hours of community service annually.  We have provided traffic and crowd management at hundreds of events, installed smoke detectors and smart burners in low-income homes, helped teach hands-only CPR to middle school children, and given preparedness presentations throughout the county. During COVID-19, we helped organize and distribute in cooperation with the Supervisor’s office, millions of pounds of food to over 100,000 families.

In addition to our service to the community, we have prepared our own team to respond to disasters/emergencies and offer regular drills to help foster this preparedness. We encourage all members of the public to take the CERT Basic Training and if interested, become active members in our organization.