Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Warren Jorgenson on February 2, 2010 at 1:48pm

Hi Matt.

Hi sorry to hear that you will not be having your line officers working with you in your training program. The training division is not a one person show in my opinion. You as the T.O. should manage the program but you really need several others involved in the training also. I live in Minnesota which is an OSHA state and we have their requirements to deal with also.

I'm sure your department is like most others where we have basically three groups of firefighters. The 0 - 5 year rookies, the 5 - 15 middle group who in my opinion do most of the interior work and the 15 - 25 plus year folks that have forgotten what the 0 - 5 year needs to know if you get my drift.

In my opinion it is impossible for one instructor to present a class or drill on a topic such as ventilation and satisfy the educational needs of the entire group. If your training is to basic the old guys get bored. If the training is to technical o satisfy the old guys the rookies have no clue what your are talking about.

You really need to attempt to satisfy everyone's need in the short time you have and that means more help and grouping firefighters that have similar knowledge and skill levels together.

In an ideal world the T.O. (training officer) would stand at the incident scene with a clip board making notes on the tasks that the firefighters are performing and noting the firefighters that need to be retrained and which ones are doing the skills perfectly.

Then we would group the FFrs together with an instructor an retrain them on those needed skills. This means that we DO NOT waste the time of everyone else in the department by having a department wide training session that most don't need.

I would encourage you to go back and tell your Chief that you need all of your company officers to be involved with the training activities and they work for YOU on training drill nights.

In the OSHA 1910.156 standard it states that following in regards to training your firefighters. I would attempt to embrace this if you can.

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1910.156(c)

Training and education.

1910.156(c)(1)

The employer shall provide training and education for all fire brigade members commensurate with those duties and functions that fire brigade members are expected to perform. Such training and education shall be provided to fire brigade members before they perform fire brigade emergency activities. Fire brigade leaders and training instructors shall be provided with training and education which is more comprehensive than that provided to the general membership of the fire brigade.

1910.156(c)(2)

The employer shall assure that training and education is conducted frequently enough to assure that each member of the fire brigade is able to perform the member's assigned duties and functions satisfactorily and in a safe manner so as not to endanger fire brigade members or other employees. All fire brigade members shall be provided with training at least annually. In addition, fire brigade members who are expected to perform interior structural fire fighting shall be provided with an education session or training at least quarterly.

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I would venture a guess that your firefighters have some skills that just need to be evaluated from time to time to make sure that they are still able to perform the member's assigned duties and functions satisfactorily and in a safe manner so as not to endanger fire brigade members or other employees.

I have always been a strong advocate for scenario based training (training in context) where we use all kinds of our basic skills such as PPE, SCBA, ladders, hose lines, small tools, apparatus etc, etc. on most every call we go on. Instead of topics every month we do scenarios every month. In your case if you do a lot of wildland fires, are the troops doing the tasks correctly or do some of them need retaining? If everyone is conducting themselves the way the departments policy manual recommends then they most likely do not need any training on wildland fires.

Look at your normal response over that last few years and see what types of incidents you go to on a everyday basis. Then also take a look at your target hazards in your response area, that you seldom respond to, and see if your skills are there to deal with those.

I have always said that we in the training division should be able to tell our officers who has what skills and how long it takes them to complete the task.

In other words, do any of your department officers know how long it takes your firefighter to ladder a two story, single family residence, cut a 4 x 4 hole and get back off the roof into a safe zone?

If the answer is no then each time your officers assign your firefighters to do that task, they maybe sending them into harms way.

In scenario based training there are enough squares in the calendar and if you have enough help you can get most of the training skills cover in the short amount of time we have.

Bottom line is we need to train like we work on the street. Training has to valid or it's a waste of time.

If there is anything I can help with let me know.

Warren Jorgenson
Minnesota State Training
http://www.firefighternation.com/profile/WarrenJorgenson16

Permalink Reply by Matthew Powers on February 3, 2010 at 9:26am

Warren, thank you for your assistance. I did not mean to imply that the line officers do not help. They actually are very supportive and I could not do what I do without them. I wanted to get the point across that training is now more of a formal affair then it has previously been. I like the idea of scenario based training and will try to factor this into future meetings. I also like your discussion on the dynamic of various experience groups and the ability, or lack there of, to train all of these effectively. Perhaps this could be a good discussion for another thread! I have always seen this in my department, but I have not actually thought hard about how to incorporate multilevel training.

The next time I meet with the officers I will find were we stand with how long it takes to accomplish tasks. Our department is rural and services 600 +/- people and we are a diverse group 18 men strong. With the diversity, I can honestly say the time to vent the roof would vary greatly based on who was tasked with that objective. None the less, I can see where this is a critical item to know. I will certainly take these items into consideration when working on future plans.

Thanks again,

MP

Permalink Reply by Richard Armstrong on May 13, 2010 at 6:03pm

Just some ideas we use at our hall we have a couple certified trainers in our hall in different areas and they go over curriculum stuff but they will also appoint FF's a certain topi and then he has them teach that component as he watches over to make sure key points aren't missed and it gets the guys to read and gain more knowledge from the book as well as hands on with everyone at the hall.
We take the stuff like MVC's and go over them and we will also have a paremedic (it is a seperate job here in Canada) and go over what their protocalls are and what they expect from us and why they do certain things in certain orders and then we tell them what our protocalls are and exacly how a car can be cut so it gives them an idea how to plan the exit for the victims.And it gets them familiar with the people who they have to work with.
then we try and touch on the stuff here and there that we don't use alot(portapumps) and try and throw a refresher in there every once in a while so we don't have a brain fart when it does come time to use it.
Then we will get a sattelite image of a random piece of property and say if this place caught fire what are we going to do and we will all brain storm and throw out ideas as to how we would approach ,where to grab hydrants,What if the wind was out of this direction or that direction.This one is always one I like cause the sat. image gives you a whole different perspective cause you get to look at where neighbour properties are and how close the things you can't see from the ground sometimes.It helps with a game plan if the pager goes off for that address some day.

Just a few ideas I'll give you more as I think of them and I'd like to hear some of yours if I could.

Permalink Reply by Richard Armstrong on May 13, 2010 at 6:30pm

Another good one is we have had some people donate old house that we could practice ventilation on not sure if possible in your area but lots of fun and real life saw in hand training.We basically just take the stuff we respond to alot and go through it alot and look at individual calls and see what works better and refresh the stuff we don't use alot so you might be able to schedule that way.