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Comment by Wilbert Kleijer on December 19, 2010 at 11:41am

Thanks for sharing your wisdom with us Ed.
Hope to use it in our training.
Greetings, Wilbert
The Netherlands

Comment by Ed Hartin on December 19, 2010 at 8:01am

Larry, Thanks for your thoughts and I am glad you got something from the course. I agree that this course should replace the Essentials of Firefighting by IFSTA or Firefighter I or II courses. However, NFPA 1001 Standard on Firefighter Professional Qualifications is grossly deficient in its requirements for knowledge of fire behavior (and building construction). Consequently, most Firefighter I and II training (which follows the standard) is also deficient in these areas. As you observe, this is "basic" knowledge. Again, I agree. Basic, but not commonly applied on the fireground. In the last several months there have been numerous near miss incidents and serious injuries related to firefighters being caught by flashover early in incident operations (shortly after entry). This makes me wonder how many of these were related to changes in ventilation profile.

One of the important differences in this course is that it connects hard science to practical street experience. The technical panel represented a broad range of fire service agencies from large (FDNY) to small (Central Whidbey Island Fire & Rescue), UL was conducting this research with not for the fire service.

Comment by Fireman Larry on December 19, 2010 at 4:00am

I'm going to have to disagree with you Ed, not all FF's should watch it, rookies need to refrain from viewing it, like everything else, this has some good reference material, but in no way should it be used to replace the IFSTA or FF I or II, it was a glorified class of Fire Behavior and Building Construction, and pretty basic knowledge, but like other courses, if I can learn one thing from everything I'ver seen, then it wass worth while.