Hello and welcome to what appears to be becoming the "Junior" FFN webpage!

Since my return I have noticed that there seems to be a plethora of postings that seem to have "junior", explorer, cadet or some other term of minority in them. Although I appreciate that everyone gets their start somewhere, and I have learned that obviously a great number of fire departments represented here on these hallowed pages use "juniors" to supplement their 'seniors'? , I can not believe how many postings there suddenly are with JUNIORS involved and to be quite frank the number of juniors that seem to have "tude" about it...

Whats the next posting.....Barney teaches ropes and knots...Dora Explorer holding a class on fire control, and today we will be using real water kids...Tonight after hours, (7:00 p.m.) we will gather upstairs for a showing of high school musical/the firefighter years...Should juniors be allowed to "skate" or scooter to the call?

I mean cmon here.....First off if your not 18.....You aint a firefighter. Junior, explorer, cadet whatever....not FIREFIGHTER...like I told one young man in here on his post..I appreciate your interest and wish you well...but when you put "junior" in front of anything...it is still JUNIOR!!!!!

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"I designed the program this way. If the red hat wants them on a line to extinguish the trash fire, and they have all ppe on, and the cadet is comfortable with the situation. Let them have it."

We don't allow children to do an adults job where I work. Do you recall the trash fire recently that ended up having water reactive metals inside it, and burning? This was a department with FFJR's, who subscribed to your departments philosophy that it was ok to have kids play firefighter on the more simplistic trash can fires.

This is not a school field trip where you take a group of kids and let them squirt water on the fire. Anyone can do that, regardless of age. But in this incident, things went very wrong. There was an explosion, one firefighter was killed and several others injured, including FFJR's. One has to ask, why were they there in the first place?

So the "red hat" company officer who allowed children to play at his or her incident deserves any and all legal ramifications because they allowed a child to be put in harms way. I find it a very foolish practice to place a child in a situation that has any potential for causing harm. Allowing children on the fireground is ridiculous in my opinion.

Training, simulated drills, etc. all good, you can't get enough training. But placing a child into harms way at a real incident, even with the parents signatures and the school board means nothing when it comes time to discuss under oath, just why the child was allowed to do what only trained folks do...

I think you have very good intentions here but from a personal liability stance, your crazy to champion any program that puts a child into a situation where they could be exposed, injured or killed. What appeared to be a simple trash can fire, as you alluded to could turn around and bite you, and it did...

CBz
Chris;

I wasn't going to respond to your posting...well mostly because I did not agree and did not feel like a fight. I changed my mind since then.

My original posting was directed at the large number of "junior" posting that seemed to be proliferating FFN at the time. You know..."should we be allowed to date other juniors?" "What color fire helmets do your juniors wear?" and finally "Should juniors be allowed to fight fire?"...The answer is a resounding NO! I just simply phrased it with much sarcasm, as I usually do in my postings.

This morning a "junior" named "sparky" decided to bring out this conversation that had ENDED in November...fortunately you were right there on the band wagon to help her out. I won't bore you yet again with all the reasons that MINORS should not be allowed to fight fire...of ANY kind, other then training in a controlled environment. I believe Captain Busy and Jack/DT have done a fine job of pointing that out to you whethr you want to see it or agree with it is entirely up to you.

As far as "gossiping on facebook"...There was no "gossip"..I was pretty much straight forward and to the point in an open forum..as far as "not wanting to imply anything bad"...YES YOU DID. Your follow up statement about gossiping on facebook shows that you did.

The bottom line is that cadets, juniors, explorers...GREAT! Train them for the future...GREAT! DO NOT put them where they DO NOT belong NOW!
....oh and I wear a red helmet and I have a son who is an explorer. A fine big strong smart ladd he is...but he is not ready to fight fire!
Tamara you have mistreated by the people in this thread. If you guys don't like jrs. Then you don't to be a$&holes about it by insulting us. Just keep your mouth shut. For those that lend advice and support us Thank you
That sounds Like a great progarm you have. Thank you for the support
That sounds Like a great progarm you have. Thank you for the support
That was not his quote... it came from a "crusty veteran instructor" from the Massachusetts Fire Academy who is a very good friend of mine. I posted that quote on firehouse.com and attributed it to the author without mentioning his name as to protect his confidentiality.
People will lift anything if it isn't bolted down.
Wish I had started when I was 16...or 18. However if I had I might be dead now! I got started after I matured more. Anyway, I certainly appreciate any young person wanting to get involved in the fire service. I don't criticize 'em - I just encourage 'em.
Yes there are idiotic juniors. I know I am not a fully trained firefighter. Never have I will I ever put someones life in danger. I will always follow the rules set forth no matter what I think.
"Our cadets help out on these types of fires and are not alone on a hoseline. We will not send them up to something they are not comfortable with and never, ever, alone."

So you are saying that if your cadets, or jr firefighters, explorers, or whatever your Dept calls individuals under 18,and without FF1 certification are comfortable with fighting a working fire, interior or exterior, they roll on your 1st due?

Whatever the case may be, it sounds like your juniors are extremely lucky to train with your Dept. In my volunteer Dept. we have juniors and highly value the program and the officer that trains them.
BUT:
They are not allowed to ride apparatus that is responding emergency traffic

No person under the age of 18 can be FF1 certified because in NC, they can not participate in the required examinations. (IDLH)

Junior Firefighters are required to remain in the "cold zone" of any incident.

They can:
Respond in POV if they are aware of the call.(No pagers)
Catch the hydrant. Nothing like a little water supply training. It's a class that's coming up soon.
Participate in training exercises, just not interior.

We do train them hard, they do search and rescue, pump operations, fire streams, etc. We just do it without the fire. (IDLH)

Once again, your juniors are extremely lucky to be able to train in a State that allows FF1 certification (or even trained to that level)for individuals under the age of 18. Your juniors are allowed to do more in training than I can as a rookie Firefighter.

I feel that the Jr. program is a great thing for the right individual, they just seem few and far between.

TCSS
GS
No I did not hear about this call. Were the firefighters and jr's injured wearing all PPE? Not trying to be a jerk but I just have no recolection or information from this event.

This is the link to the incident referred.
http://www.firefighternation.com/xn/detail/889755:Topic:4437240

This was a dumpster fire, which many out there completely disregard the hazards because it is just a "trash fire", which killed one firefighter and injured several others, juniors included. Point is the purpose of such programs are there to give kids a chance to experience what the job is lke if they want to pursue the profession, not being a training ground as commonly confused.

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