Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jay Lowry on October 25, 2008 at 6:13pm

Have you attempted to get some of the more responsible people in the department to approach the Fire Chief about it?

Permalink Reply by Marques Bush on October 25, 2008 at 10:06pm

No I haven't but I wanted to have some Ideas to give them when I approached them. By more responsible who are you reffering too? We have an operations commitee and when I get some Ideas I will relay them to my representatives.

Permalink Reply by Jay Lowry on October 26, 2008 at 10:02am

Responsible means those tasked with formulating departmental policy and procedures. The OPS committee is very appropriate.

Permalink Reply by Marques Bush on October 26, 2008 at 4:53pm

Gotcha! I just don't want to approach them with a problem without having some solutions to offer. They do have a lot on their plate!

Permalink Reply by Jay Lowry on October 26, 2008 at 5:58pm

Operations committee's need more on their plates.

Obtain copies of the SOG's from regional departments relating to truck company functions. Take them and give them to EACH member of the ops committee. This gives them an idea of what is necessary.

Permalink Reply by Marques Bush on October 29, 2008 at 8:21am

Yes sir know just who to reach out too! Thanks!

Permalink Reply by Paul Burley on October 29, 2008 at 7:45pm

First I would have to ask, are you using your quint as a big engine with a ladder or a truck with a pump? Is the quint first out the door?? You will have a difficult time with truck work if your quint is the first arriving engine....

Permalink Reply by Marques Bush on October 29, 2008 at 7:58pm

Primarily used as an engine but our operations committee I believe is trying to get that changed.

Permalink Reply by Scott S on November 5, 2008 at 8:34pm

Whether you have a truck or not. Truck work is very important to the evolution of firefighting. Im my department I was captain of our truck company. We responded with 3 eng, 1 resc, 1 tanker, and the truck. Our first duty was to provide forcalble entry. locate the fire, search for victims, ventilation,ladder the building if needed, and overhaul. Obviously this isn't all we would do, but this was our main duties. I would think that your department already deals with these issues already so maybe what you're looking for is more focused training on these tactics. The first thing to look for is education on truck company ops. I don't know if your county provides this. We worked with several departments nieghboring ours that didn't have a truck or ladder company, but they would still operate and train their firefighters for truck work. I don't know if this was what you're lookinng for but hope i helped somewhat.

Permalink Reply by Marques Bush on November 23, 2008 at 10:19pm

Yes Scott you did anytime brothers are sharing ideas and bouncing things off each other there is something to be learned. Happy Holidays

Permalink Reply by Joey "BigShow" De Piano on December 5, 2008 at 11:50pm

Might start with a Truck operations class see what you are getting into, second check your SOPs on mutual aid of a Truck unit responding in and when you might not even need to learn it ,though even if you never use it its good to know how to. LEARN LEARN LEARN....If you guys are F.A.S.T. cerified you really need to take a Truck ops class...might also want to start setting up EVOC class to learn to drive a Truck both rear and midmount version they handle way differently.

Permalink Reply by Rob on January 9, 2009 at 4:34am

Not sure what you have in your area for training resources. In my area we are fortunate to have the Ohio Fire Academy (run by the state fire marshall) and State Fire School (run by Bowling Green University) who both offer great truck ops classes as well as several county fire schools that do the same. I am in a similar boat except we don't even have a quint. We run 4 engines! My engine is almost alway the one doing the "truck work" mainly due to mentality and training of our crew. All 4 engines are equipped almost identical, except we have tossed extras on ours (a couple extra hooks, the only gas ppv fan in the department, a few bags of search/utility rope, 1 bag of life safety rope, the only 3" attack line in the department, 1 of 2 high rise packs in the department, and various little extras to get the job done better. If you have the ability to get it set by policy who will do truck work, FANTASTIC! If you don't the TRAIN, TRAIN, TRAIN! We never know who is going to be first since we are a volunteer department that occasionally had a Pt guy or two around to staff the medic. Since my station has typically 8 to 10 minutes just to get guys to the station we have guys in house a lot so we end up beating the first due quite often. Since we do not know when the next in will arrive we absolutely WILL NOT do an unassisted search unless we know exact location of a live victim we can snatch through a window safely. As another mentioned if you guys have training in F.A.S.T., R.I.T. or whatever your area calls it, you better know truck company operations like the back of your hand because when the shit hits that is the bread and butter of a good R.I.T. deployment and rescue. Getting your crew to buy in to the truckie mentality is a good first step if policy is not going to change things. Always remember to train on anything you can and train often!

Sorry to ramble on, but this is an issue that is very close to my heart for the reasons listed above.

Rob