Fire & Rescue Training - My Firefighter Nation2024-03-19T12:12:52Zhttps://my.firefighternation.com/forum/categories/fire-rescue-training/listForCategory?feed=yes&xn_auth=nomodified 200' triple lay hose loadtag:my.firefighternation.com,2023-03-24:889755:Topic:67916492023-03-24T03:27:34.553ZJeff Privettehttps://my.firefighternation.com/profile/PigPen35
<p>We experimented with hose loads and deployment today. My department currently runs the triple lay on all our crosslays, which are 200 ft.</p>
<p>While training today, and considering our short staff problem, We flat layed 100' with a hand loop at 50 and tripled the last 100' on the other side of the tray.</p>
<p>By grabbing the triple lay in normal fashion in one hand and the loop of the flat load in the other, all hose cleared the bed, and when deployed, the nozzle person has 33' of usable…</p>
<p>We experimented with hose loads and deployment today. My department currently runs the triple lay on all our crosslays, which are 200 ft.</p>
<p>While training today, and considering our short staff problem, We flat layed 100' with a hand loop at 50 and tripled the last 100' on the other side of the tray.</p>
<p>By grabbing the triple lay in normal fashion in one hand and the loop of the flat load in the other, all hose cleared the bed, and when deployed, the nozzle person has 33' of usable hose at the attack position for advancement.</p>
<p>Have any of you trained with this load variation, and if so pros/cons?</p> Vehicle Extrication Training - Online Platformtag:my.firefighternation.com,2023-02-15:889755:Topic:67894862023-02-15T08:57:23.632ZRescue-Simhttps://my.firefighternation.com/profile/RescueSim
<p>We are currently developing an online Vehicle extrication training tool, this is to be used as a blended training approach, where theory is undertaken on-line, then class room and on-site training is maximised as candidates have gained knowledge prior to the physical training. We are keen to understand what scenario's we should include, and how we can meet expectations. Our goal is to make training available to as many firefighters and first responders as possible without high costs,…</p>
<p>We are currently developing an online Vehicle extrication training tool, this is to be used as a blended training approach, where theory is undertaken on-line, then class room and on-site training is maximised as candidates have gained knowledge prior to the physical training. We are keen to understand what scenario's we should include, and how we can meet expectations. Our goal is to make training available to as many firefighters and first responders as possible without high costs, supporting and enhancing the current training methods. If anyone is interested in providing feedback our tool is live at <a href="https://www.rescue-sim.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.rescue-sim.com</a> , you can sign up for a free trial, and we would offer free full licenses to anyone who has ideas or open to providing feedback.</p> Advicetag:my.firefighternation.com,2022-10-11:889755:Topic:67857422022-10-11T19:04:52.899ZTrezure Stackhousehttps://my.firefighternation.com/profile/TrezureStackhouse
<p>Hey everyone! I'm currently a freshman in college studying to get my fire protection degree. Next year I am going to have training at the fire academy. I was wondering if anyone had any advice for the fire academy and what I should expect it to be like?</p>
<p>Hey everyone! I'm currently a freshman in college studying to get my fire protection degree. Next year I am going to have training at the fire academy. I was wondering if anyone had any advice for the fire academy and what I should expect it to be like?</p> FireRescue Magazine: Is Your Department Business Intelligent?tag:my.firefighternation.com,2020-12-10:889755:Topic:67521692020-12-10T15:59:12.797ZFFN WebTeamhttps://my.firefighternation.com/profile/WebTeam1
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Sharing Best Practices in Business Intelligence from the Virginia Beach, VA Fire Department</strong></span></p>
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<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8270435279?profile=original" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8270435279?profile=RESIZE_710x"></img></a> <em>(pixabay)</em></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>By Dr. Evgeniy Ivanov</strong></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">It has become universally…</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Sharing Best Practices in Business Intelligence from the Virginia Beach, VA Fire Department</strong></span></p>
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<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8270435279?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8270435279?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full"/></a><em>(pixabay)</em></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>By Dr. Evgeniy Ivanov</strong></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">It has become universally acknowledged that data is of primary importance for making informed decisions. You can hear about data-driven culture or data-informed decision making in almost any organization or department, big or small. Nowadays, there is a new term being used to comprehensively capture all aspects of exploring data in a smart way – it is called Business Intelligence (BI).</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>The Fifth Goal </strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong> </strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Whether your organization is handling data and analytics in an intelligent or archaic way will determine how successful it is in achieving its strategic goals and in keeping up with the front runners in the industry. During its strategic business plan review in 2020, the Virginia Beach (VA) Fire Department (VBFD) recognized the importance of BI and added a new strategic goal–the fifth goal—that seeks to “Enhance Business Intelligence (BI) and Information Technology (IT) capabilities.”<a href="https://firerescuemagazine.firefighternation.com/2020/12/02/is-your-department-business-intelligent/#_edn1">[1]</a> That new goal, among other things, is a reflection of the raised level of ambition for the department to become “internationally recognized as a leader in fire service excellence with the ability to predict emerging and challenging environments, develop our members, and cultivate the community sense of feeling safe any place, any time,” as stated in the new vision statement.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">The portion of goal five that addresses an enhanced BI capability seeks that development through three objectives:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Objective 1: Develop BI capability that provides reporting and dashboarding of metrics required for key business needs and accreditation.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Objective 2: Develop BI capability that provides key statistical data to the public through Open Data.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Objective 3: Develop BI capability that provides self-service to BI reports, dashboards, and automated exports.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Does your department have a “fifth goal” in its strategic plan?</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>What Is Business Intelligence?</strong></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">There are different approaches when it comes to defining business intelligence. Foley & Guillemette observed that “researchers in the field have defined BI using many different definitions, each one with a particular orientation that best suited their particular study.”<a href="https://firerescuemagazine.firefighternation.com/2020/12/02/is-your-department-business-intelligent/#_edn2">[2]</a> Some definitions approach BI as the tools, others refer to it as a system or a process. The common ground for all definitions is that BI, in general terms, is about the ability to query and collect data from multiple sources, prepare it for analysis, and present it in the form of reports and dashboards. That is why I would rather define it as <strong><em>a capability,</em> first and foremost: a capability for gathering and analyzing data aimed at delivering business information to support informed decision making</strong>.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Furthermore, BI is not only a capability but even more–<strong>it is a cross-cutting one</strong>, which makes it of critical importance to your department’s functioning and success. First, data does not exist on its own; it is always about something. For a fire department, internal data covers all the functional areas and their capabilities to serve internally and externally, such as human resources, fire operations, inspections, safety, finance, and so on. Second, a fully developed BI capability will help your department explore all these data in a structured way. Thus, it will empower all the program managers who oversee those functional areas and capabilities to make informed decisions on how to sustain success and even improve processes further. BI products, such as dashboards and reports, are easy and quick to explore by end-users through their “self-service” functionality.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>The Three Elements of a BI Capability</strong></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">A BI capability consists of 3 core elements: <strong>the BI tools and applications; the BI training on how to use those tools; and the analyst</strong> who operationalizes the power of the former two elements into tangible BI solutions and outputs such as workflows, dashboards, and reports. As a unique capability, BI requires its own specific knowledge, tools, and even the analytical skills on how to bring it all to work together. In the case of VBFD, that capability predominantly resides within the Research & Analysis Bureau. It is currently staffed with two civilian analyst positions—a research manager and a fire RMS database administrator—with a battalion chief (BC) overseeing the bureau and bringing fire service field expertise. It is worth noting that despite the fact that the staffing of the analytical and reporting capability will differ from one department to another, there is no doubt that its existence is essential, in one form or another, to ensure a data-driven culture and evidence-based decision making.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Three Examples of BI Solutions</strong></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Here are three examples of BI solutions that optimized business processes and justified the efforts toward achieving the objectives under Goal 5, as listed above.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Example 1: Tracking Unfinished NFIRS Reports.</strong> In our example, a BC wants to know how many unfinished National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) basic and assist reports there are in the Fire Records Management System (RMS) from all the units and stations under their supervision. Normally, the public safety analyst will process that request and will give the information to the BC. In such a case, that data will benefit only one person–the BC. With the new approach of sharing virtual works spaces and BI products, if such a request is identified as being able to benefit more people and serve a higher purpose, then it will be scaled up (a technique in project management) and would become a departmental BI project. This is how such a project delivered the VBFD Unfinished Reports Dashboard (Figure 1) and the latter was created to bridge the gap of a missing report queuing functionality in the current departmental RMS and to provide BCs and unit commanders with a tool to track, monitor, and manage the NFIRS reporting. The logic for that dashboard was built through team discussions that defined what constitutes an “Unfinished Report.” In addition, those efforts benefit not only the internal reporting processes but also the quantity and quality of the NFIRS data reported monthly to the state. The dashboard is used also by the Quality Control (QC) working group that scrutinizes the quality of data in the Fire RMS.</span></p>
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<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8270436293?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8270436293?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full"/></a><em>Figure 1. Virginia Beach Fire Department Unfinished Reports Dashboard</em></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Example 2: Fire Inspections Tracking Through a “Self-Service” Dashboard.</strong> Everybody knows that fire inspections are critical for the safety of businesses and their customers. But this program is also critical for bringing revenue to the city budget and for funding some of the fire inspector positions. No doubt that running the process of fire inspections tracking in a smart and effective way is a must. This was the requirement from the VBFD Fire Prevention Bureau (FPB). A small working group developed the Fire Inspections Dashboard that has two pages/tabs–one for all the fire inspection records and another for annual inspections only. The dashboard also operationalized a custom requirement–to show if the last annual inspection date (LAID) of a business is older than one year. That would be one way to prioritize businesses for inspection. Another way is by their importance to public safety; the FPB developed a “Use Group Priority” where businesses were identified as having High, Medium, or Low priority. Schools and colleges are examples of a high-use group priority; restaurants and nightclubs, medium; and residential homes, low. Ultimately, the Fire Inspections Dashboard (Figure 2) is an operationalization of the “self-service” paradigm where every fire inspector can create a prioritized inspection list (for the year, the month, etc.); track completed and pending annual inspections as the dashboard refreshes daily; and, above all, pull that dashboard on a tablet or smartphone from anywhere and without further need of a paper report or support staff assistance.</span></p>
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<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8270436465?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8270436465?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full"/></a><em>Figure 2. All and Annual Fire Inspections Dashboard</em></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Example 3: Automating the Standard of Cover (SOC) Response Times Calculation.</strong> Calculating response times for your Standard of Cover (SOC) document for your accreditation process is a huge effort and time-consuming task. The conventional way of handling your data is to create and run separate queries to determine each response time (Alarm Handling, Turn Out, Travel, Total Response) for all incidents and then for the Effective Response Force concentration (Travel and Total Response). Once the data is extracted, the next task is to calculate the 90th percentile for all those times broken down by calendar year, by SOC category (e.g. Moderate Risk Fire, Special Risk Fires, etc.), by area type (metro, rural), etc. Can you imagine the number of queries and manual manipulations your analyst must perform to fulfill that task?</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Well, if you invest some time with your team to come up with querying logics that, later on, your analyst binds together in your business intelligence software, then you will end up with a dashboard that can answer all those questions simultaneously, as shown in Figure 3. In addition, you can set filters for scrubbing outliers, add visuals that show the percent of time you reached your target, and many other custom-built logics that can answer a huge array of questions with a simple click of a mouse.</span></p>
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<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8270436870?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8270436870?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full"/></a><em>Figure 3. Standard of Cover (SOC) Response Times–90th Percentile Dashboard</em></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Five Tips for Building Up Your Departmental BI Capability</strong></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">If your department is still in the beginning of developing a more enhanced BI capability and you are still struggling with where to start, then remember the three core elements of a BI capability–the tools/applications, the BI training, and the BI public safety analyst(s). Start with acquiring those first. Below are some tips that can be used as best practices in this “to-be-transformational” for your department endeavor.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><em>Does your fire department have a public safety analyst?</em> If not, plan for having at least one or more, depending on the size of your department. Analysts will form the core element of your departmental BI capability that will bring together the BI tools, the departmental knowledge, and your innovative and process-improvement ideas. The critical role of analysts for the success of professional fire departments has been recognized by the Center for Public Safety Excellence (CPSE) by launching the Fire Analyst project and requesting the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) “to develop a fire analyst professional qualification (Pro-Qual) standard. Given the complexity of gathering and analyzing data for accreditation and the growing sophistication of technology systems available to fire departments, CPSE believes a Pro-Qual standard for fire analysts is an important next step in the progression of fire departments.”<a href="https://firerescuemagazine.firefighternation.com/2020/12/02/is-your-department-business-intelligent/#_edn3">[3]</a></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><em>Being a professional and modern fire department requires efforts not only “on scene” but also behind it, where your departmental knowledge and data reside.</em> Start exploring that knowledge in a smart way using BI and you will be able to see “all at once” what is the current status of your performance and compare it to where you aim to be.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><em>Be proactive and volunteer for initial testing of products and applications.</em> Participate in new testing of BI tools or solutions by offering your fire data. This was how the VBFD developed its first BI Dashboard for presenting calls for service by first-due area and succeeded in becoming the first department in the City of Virginia Beach to embed a BI dashboard onto its publicly accessible Web page.<a href="https://firerescuemagazine.firefighternation.com/2020/12/02/is-your-department-business-intelligent/#_edn4">[4]</a></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><em>Use a shared working space.</em> Encourage your department to use shared working spaces (e.g., SharePoint Online) and take advantage of its multiple functionalities. That way, everyone can have quick access from anywhere to vital data, dashboards, and documents. Collaboration is key. You can still control who can see what by managing permissions. In addition, you can create workflows to support specific processes.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><em>Seek counterparts, learn from others, and build your team of champions.</em> You need a team of champions both internally and externally. Internally, no one can do wonders (and be willing to do them) without having the full support of their supervisor and the chain of command. Externally, you need to collaborate with your IT department so that they can trust your analyst and provide the necessary access to databases, BI tools and licenses, and day-to day IT troubleshooting support. In Virginia Beach, we have a small dedicated team of BI system engineers in the IT department who provide support (to include BI training) to other departments. Reach out to your counterparts from other public safety departments; that way, you will learn what software you might need. Also, you might find that you have a lot of common problems and you might get or even share some tips on how to solve them.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>The Benefits of a BI Capability</strong></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">I have limited the BI examples here to three, but the list of process improvements through BI is quite long and is getting even longer as we speak, and so is the list of their benefits.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">The utmost benefit, as mentioned above, is that BI, as a cross-cutting capability, can support a better functioning of all the processes in your department. Your departmental senior staff can quote data from the dashboards using their mobile phones during a meeting. Or, your fire safety educator can project those while speaking in a school classroom. The created dashboards can be shared with other departments if there is a need. For example, a dashboard with the GIS locations of fire hydrants can serve both the fire department and the public utilities departments’ needs. Ultimately, BI will help improve your performance in data handling in terms of the following:</span></p>
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<li><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Automating data processing. This will limit the time your employees have to spend querying and reporting data and allow them time to learn new skills or take on new projects.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Who has access to it and from where.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 14pt;">How much information you can see at once.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Whether the end users can interact with the data themselves–the “Self-Service” paradigm—or they need an analyst to create and run a separate report to answer each request for information.</span></li>
</ul>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">These are just some examples of how your department can benefit from developing an enhanced BI capability. As for VBFD, the initial BI capability has been achieved. Our next milestone is to reach and sustain a full BI capability that helps all VBFD program managers handle data in a smart and an intelligent way.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Acknowledgments</strong></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">I wish to thank to District Chief Administration Amy Valdez and Battalion Chief Research and Analysis Jonathan McIvor, both with VBFD, for providing valuable suggestions and comments.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Dr. Evgeniy Ivanov</strong> works as a research manager for the Virginia Beach Fire Department. He is a certified PRINCE2 project management practitioner with current research efforts in data analysis, problem solving facilitation, program evaluation and process improvement, concepts, and methods, among others.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>ENDNOTES:</strong></span></p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator"/><p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://firerescuemagazine.firefighternation.com/2020/12/02/is-your-department-business-intelligent/#_ednref1">[1]</a> Virginia Beach Fire Department. (June 2020). <em>2020 – 2025 Strategic Plan</em>.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://firerescuemagazine.firefighternation.com/2020/12/02/is-your-department-business-intelligent/#_ednref2">[2]</a> Foley, É., & Guillemette, M. G. (2010). What is Business Intelligence? <em>International Journal of Business Intelligence Research (IJBIR), 1</em>(4), 1-28. doi:10.4018/jbir.2010100101.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://firerescuemagazine.firefighternation.com/2020/12/02/is-your-department-business-intelligent/#_ednref3">[3]</a> Center for Public Safety Excellence, Projects – Fire Analyst, accessed 04 October 2020, <<a href="https://cpse.org/projects/fire-analyst/">https://cpse.org/projects/fire-analyst/</a>.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://firerescuemagazine.firefighternation.com/2020/12/02/is-your-department-business-intelligent/#_ednref4">[4]</a> Virginia Beach Fire Department, <em>Calls for Service Dashboard</em>, accessed 01 October 2020,<a href="https://www.vbgov.com/government/departments/fire/Pages/Calls-for-Service.aspx">https://www.vbgov.com/government/departments/fire/Pages/Calls-for-Service.aspx</a>.</span></p>
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<p><a href="https://www.firefighternation.com/firerescue/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>READ MORE ON FIRERESCUE MAGAZINE</strong></span></a></p> Standing in the Gaptag:my.firefighternation.com,2020-05-21:889755:Topic:67113782020-05-21T11:20:24.339ZFFN WebTeamhttps://my.firefighternation.com/profile/WebTeam1
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>That defining moment will one day come for you</strong></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/5218944667?profile=original" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/5218944667?profile=RESIZE_710x"></img></a> <em>Will you truly be able to answer the call or are you lying to yourself? (Pexels)</em></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>By Ric Jorge…</strong></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>That defining moment will one day come for you</strong></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/5218944667?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/5218944667?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full"/></a><em>Will you truly be able to answer the call or are you lying to yourself? (Pexels)</em></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>By Ric Jorge</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">“One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.”–Freud</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The Gap is the place where we separate life from death, good from evil, honesty from dishonesty. The Gap is not an easy place to stand; sometimes it requires great sacrifice and/or making unpopular decisions. You may find yourself standing alone in the Gap, or with great support, but it is seldom an easy place to make a stand. The Gap can be an internal or external battle, but it’s typically a battle worth having.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Witness the sheep quietly going about their lives, never seeing the dangers until it’s too late. The shepherd stands in the Gap for the sheep, protecting them as they go about their business ignorant of the wolf that stalks them.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">What makes the shepherd so courageous that he would take on a wolf? Is it his courage, his staff, the sheepdog, or the wages he’s paid? What if the shepherd didn’t have a dog, or the wolf were to kill the dog? The shepherd would be left with only a staff to stand in the Gap. Wouldn’t it make more sense to sacrifice one sheep to save the flock rather than endanger yourself for something that doesn’t even understand what the shepherd is willing to sacrifice?</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Firefighting is not much different. Our staff and sheepdog are different, but our job is similar, as is the way the job is arguably viewed by the public (sheeple). Looking below the surface, you’ll notice there are significant differences between the shepherd who would sacrifice himself and the one who would sacrifice a sheep just as there is a difference between being a firefighter or someone who works for a fire department.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">If you got into this profession for the accolades, recognition, and ego stroke, maybe sacrificing one sheep makes sense to you, but you’re not a firefighter–you’re someone who works for a fire department. I would challenge your motives and question my desire to trust you with my life or others. If you got into this profession to be of service, to give back to your community, to protect the unknown faces that make up our citizenship, to be willing to sacrifice your ego to become a master of your craft, then you are a firefighter–you are the shepherd who will fight the wolf with his staff or his bare hands to protect his sheep. To stand in the Gap requires a price, and this profession will leave you with scars–some visible, some invisible.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Some will say courage is required to do this job. What, then, when fear, the assassin of courage, shows up? The answer in short is faith (belief); to overcome fear, you must have faith. Faith gives way to courage; courage gives way to bravery. To develop this requires specific training in lessons of the mind and physical techniques blended together. In the shepherd’s family, these traits are handed down from one generation to the other.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">As an example of developing these traits, let’s take search and rescue. The action taken to search for occupants in complete visibility or lights-out conditions, in a burning building–a building with multiple floors, entering through a door or through a window, enduring heat or extreme cold is an example of learning your discipline under degrees of difficulty. It is straightforward and consistent until the roof collapses or the floor gives way. Up to that point, you may not have realized the price for standing in the Gap, as the shepherd only realized it when faced with a hungry wolf. This is the point that all of your training, your experience, and your natural ability will come into play. Your greatest tool available to you is your mind. If you have not prepared your mind for where your body may have to go, you are leaving the public, your department, your family, and yourself exposed to incomplete training that may lead to unnecessary failure.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Training the mind requires more than realistic scenarios. It starts with recognizing that all of us are different. We have different life experiences. We are different genders, shapes, sizes, mentalities, IQs, language skills, abilities, and capabilities. If you think training should be placed into a nice neat box and everyone should be able to perform the same, you’re wrong. Train your people to their ability, and then push them a little more. Learn to coach when necessary, stop confusing testing with training, quit placing your expectations on people, and learn to witness their abilities and inabilities so you can better evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. Then learn how to improve them and prepare them to stand in the Gap. The mental game is everything; without it all those cool tools are worthless under duress.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">“Amateurs train with the hardware, professionals train on the software.”</span><br/> <span style="font-size: 12pt;">–Lt. Col. D. Grossman</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">What’s your thought processing when you get trapped? Have you practiced being pinned down in multiple positions? Have you trained mimicking your Mayday and self-extricating techniques with a broken arm or leg or disorientation? How have your instructors helped you to develop your thought processing?</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">What’s your reaction like? Only you know the secrets you keep because you’re afraid to look foolish. Would you rather gamble to look good but be dead or maimed? Don’t forget you are letting down the public, your family, and ultimately yourself rather than face a challenge that would make you more resilient. Your internal dialogue, what you’re telling yourself, is your biggest stumbling block or your biggest asset. Learning to overcome negative self-talk is a prerequisite to standing in the Gap. How have you trusted your instructors to help you with this? Do you trust your instructors? Can your instructors help you with this?</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Training is great if it is reasonable. What makes it reasonable? Retention–the goal of any training session is retention. If your training is too complex for your audience, or they have not been properly prepared, retention drops. The opposite is true if training is too simple: Retention drops because you’ll lose people’s interest. Instructors must know their audience and deliver appropriately.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Rookies are not the same as new recruits; new recruits may come from another department and be further advanced than rookies. Rookies should not be trained the way you would train Special Ops, and vice versa. The goal of training is to somehow capture the students’ attention with the subject matter and create an association they will relate to so they can retain this information for future referencing. That information then needs to be repeated diligently for it to develop into a default. It takes time to develop an appropriate response. Training develops our default response. Training is the substitute for lack of experience. Training must have realistic goal setting. We train to play; we don’t play to train. If you want your people to “get into the job,” you have to get their heads into the job.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">When the worst happens, you must be prepared to stand in the Gap; this career demands it. How do you do this if your thoughts are racing and you’re emotionally red-lined? All of the preceding techniques are requisite for arousal control to be approached. A situation, an image, and thought processing will illicit the emotions that cause arousal levels to escalate or deescalate. Sometimes the thoughts or a situation occurs so rapidly you are left with an unfamiliar scenario or behavior. At this point, psychophysical techniques such as breathing will help to regulate the hormonal response associated with the experience in question and allow for rational thought to occurs rather than allow the sympathetic nervous system to take charge.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">We train our entire lives for moments in time that will define our ability to stand in the Gap. That defining moment will one day come for you on the job. It will come off the job, in retirement, or all of the above. This process transcends the fire service. Are you prepared to stand in the Gap?</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>RIC JORGE</strong> has been a firefighter for Palm Beach County (FL) Fire Rescue since 1992. He has authored chapters in several books and coauthored Developing Firefighter Resilience (Fire Engineering). Having been assigned to trucks and engines, he has taught many of the disciplines. He retired in 2017 to pursue his passion of training. He also works at a rehab counseling center for first responders struggling with drugs, alcohol, and post-traumatic stress disorder.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong><a href="https://firerescuemagazine.firefighternation.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">READ MORE ON FIRERESCUE MAGAZINE</span></a></strong></span></p> FireRescue Magazine: The Assessment Centertag:my.firefighternation.com,2020-05-19:889755:Topic:67110222020-05-19T11:44:06.360ZFFN WebTeamhttps://my.firefighternation.com/profile/WebTeam1
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What does your agency expect of a member in this position?</strong></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/4303295551?profile=original" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/4303295551?profile=RESIZE_710x"></img></a></strong></span></p>
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<div class="wp-block-image"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><em>To properly prepare, you need to understand the position that you are testing for. (Wayne Barrall…</em></span></div>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What does your agency expect of a member in this position?</strong></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/4303295551?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/4303295551?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full"/></a></strong></span></p>
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<div class="wp-block-image"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><em>To properly prepare, you need to understand the position that you are testing for. (Wayne Barrall photo)</em></span></div>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>By Lisa Baker</strong></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">To be successful at anything, you need to understand what you are being asked to perform, and an assessment center is no different. In many organizations, an assessment center is used as a means to promote members to company officers and above. Assessment centers have been found to be a fair method to test aspiring officers because all applicants are going through the same process. All applicants are being asked to perform the same exercises and are being graded by the same assessors (the individuals who are scoring the applicants). Assessors are trained members from the fire service who serve in the rank being tested or in a rank higher than the rank being tested.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Many fire service members have probably heard someone in their own organization or a neighboring agency state that they are going to an assessment center. What actually does that mean?</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">An assessment center is not a location; it is a process where aspiring fire service members are tested in a variety of exercises. It is a test. It tests your ability to perform the duties of the position for which you are testing. A typical assessment center will have a variety of job-related exercises that the applicant must do. Typically, you will find some sort of emergency scenario, a personnel problem/subordinate counseling, a written exercise, and an in-basket. So, how do you prepare to score high and ensure that you will be at the top of the eligibility list? Like any test, you need to prepare and study. Studying the right way and knowing how to score high on the assessment center will give you that edge up.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">There are many articles, books, and classes throughout the United States on assessment centers. The classes teach you how to prepare to be successful in the assessment center process, But, like anything in life, you as the applicant need to be able to take the information and apply it to the situations at hand.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">To properly prepare, you need to understand the position that you are testing for. What does your agency expect of a member in this position? Talk to those in the rank to determine this. Shadow your current officer and/or chief to see what the daily tasks of the position are, read your agency’s policies and procedures, rules and regulations, and understand how they apply to the position. Know the current issues in your own agency: What are the hot topics? Know what is occurring on the national stage with the fire service, again what are the hot topics? How do they apply to your agency?</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">When preparing, your mindset should not just be on passing the assessment center and receiving a high score. To be the most prepared for the position that you are testing for starts long before the announcement for a promotional opportunity is posted. You stay abreast of current issues in your agency, you are involved in your agency’s activities, you volunteer for projects, and you take classes and seminars throughout the United States if possible. This allows you not only to continue to grow but to build relationships with other fire service members throughout the United States as you network with members from similar size agencies and perhaps larger agencies.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Once the job announcement is posted, in many agencies there is a reading list that will have your own agency’s policies and procedures, rules and regulations, and other internal material. There may also be external materials that could range from books to videos. Knowing what to expect early will help you to prepare. Keeping up to date on your own agency’s policies and procedures, rules and regulations, and other internal information will have you one step ahead. You will not need to study this material in detail, as you have kept abreast of it throughout your career. Start preparing prior to the job announcement. Look at the previous year’s job announcements. Are there books that appear on both lists? If so, there is a good chance that they will be on the test that you will be taking. Get these books and prepare early. Then, when the job announcement comes out, your main focus can be on the new material. The time to prepare is not when the job announcement is posted.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Get a mentor. This does not necessarily have to be someone within you own agency. Talk to others in your agency who have taken assessment centers in the past. Talk to members of other agencies who have taken assessment centers to obtain as much information as you can from these members: What types of exercises were on their assessment center?</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">An assessment center is basically putting the candidate (the member taking the test) through the day of a rank that they are testing for. The emergency scenario, a written memo, an in-basket, and a subordinate problem are all possible scenarios that you will be tested on. But, if you are prepared, understand the position, and have watched a myriad of promoted members, you will truly understand the position that you are testing for as well as what is a respected officer.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">So, the time to prepare for a promotion is not once the job announcement is published but long before. Become a student of the position. This will make you not only a top candidate but a well-rounded and prepared candidate.</span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Lisa Baker</strong> has been a member of the fire service for 28 years and has served as an assessor for numerous assessment center processes across the United States from the rank of firefighter to battalion chief. This has allowed her to gain the knowledge of what an assessment center entails and how to score high. She has also been involved in the test development process. She has an AA, a BA, and a master’s degree and is a graduate of the National Fire Academy Executive Fire Officer program. She is a battalion chief in the Oakland (CA) Fire Department.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://firerescuemagazine.firefighternation.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>READ MORE ON FIRERESCUE MAGAZINE</strong></a></span></p> Stoicism and the Art of Fighting Firetag:my.firefighternation.com,2020-04-03:889755:Topic:67080732020-04-03T14:40:12.546ZFFN WebTeamhttps://my.firefighternation.com/profile/WebTeam1
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“A blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it.”–M. Aurelius</span></p>
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<p><a href="https://firerescuemagazine.firefighternation.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2020/04/Blume-FRM-April-2020.png" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="https://firerescuemagazine.firefighternation.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2020/04/Blume-FRM-April-2020.png?profile=RESIZE_710x"></img></a> <em>The stoic does not overreact. (Unsplash)</em><br></br><br></br><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>By Kristopher T. Blume…</strong></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“A blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it.”–M. Aurelius</span></p>
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<p><a href="https://firerescuemagazine.firefighternation.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2020/04/Blume-FRM-April-2020.png" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://firerescuemagazine.firefighternation.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2020/04/Blume-FRM-April-2020.png?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full"/></a><em>The stoic does not overreact. (Unsplash)</em><br/><br/><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>By Kristopher T. Blume</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Many terms are used to describe firefighters and their attributes. How about this one: stoic. No need for us to bury ourselves in philosophical ponderance. At base, stoicism is about cultivating a rational approach to recognize what is within one’s control and what is not. Digging deeper, it is about acceptance and resilience. The classic principles of Stoicism set forth by Seneca, Aurelius, and Epictetus are straightforward and concise. In fact, in principle, stoicism is leveraged by four virtues:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Courage is the mental strength to endure; persevere; and overcome danger, fear, or adversity. Courage is built on experience and competence. The opposite of courage is fear, dread, and anxiety, which are the result of uncertainty and inexperience.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Wisdom, as it relates to stoic virtue, is the accumulated appraisal of insight, judgment, and knowledge.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Self-control or moderation is the ability to regulate oneself–specifically, controlling one’s emotions and desires or the expression of those emotions in one’s attitudes and actions. This attribute becomes amplified in adverse situations.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Thriving in adversity. “Excellence withers without an adversary,” Seneca stated in Letters from a Stoic. We should not avoid hardship. Instead, we should adopt a more competitive attitude toward our challenges. Anticipate being uncomfortable but prepared. Narrow your attention to your task at hand. Focus your energies on those activities that will produce the desired result; this is how one thrives on adversity.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://firerescuemagazine.firefighternation.com/2020/04/02/stoicism-and-the-art-of-fighting-fire/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE on FIRERESCUE MAGAZINE</a></span></p> The Assessment Centertag:my.firefighternation.com,2020-04-02:889755:Topic:67081502020-04-02T13:15:33.929ZFFN WebTeamhttps://my.firefighternation.com/profile/WebTeam1
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>What does your agency expect of a member in this position?</strong></span></p>
<p></p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/4303295551?profile=original" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/4303295551?profile=RESIZE_710x"></img></a> <em>To properly prepare, you need to understand the position that you are testing for. (Wayne Barrall photo)</em></p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>By Lisa Baker…</strong></span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>What does your agency expect of a member in this position?</strong></span></p>
<p></p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/4303295551?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/4303295551?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full"/></a><em>To properly prepare, you need to understand the position that you are testing for. (Wayne Barrall photo)</em></p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>By Lisa Baker</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">To be successful at anything, you need to understand what you are being asked to perform, and an assessment center is no different. In many organizations, an assessment center is used as a means to promote members to company officers and above. Assessment centers have been found to be a fair method to test aspiring officers because all applicants are going through the same process. All applicants are being asked to perform the same exercises and are being graded by the same assessors (the individuals who are scoring the applicants). Assessors are trained members from the fire service who serve in the rank being tested or in a rank higher than the rank being tested.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Many fire service members have probably heard someone in their own organization or a neighboring agency state that they are going to an assessment center. What actually does that mean?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">An assessment center is not a location; it is a process where aspiring fire service members.</span></p>
<p></p>
<p><a href="https://firerescuemagazine.firefighternation.com/2020/04/01/the-assessment-center/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">READ MORE on FIRERESCUE MAGAZINE</span></a></p> Interpreting Heat Signaturestag:my.firefighternation.com,2020-01-06:889755:Topic:67048362020-01-06T21:45:32.255ZFFN WebTeamhttps://my.firefighternation.com/profile/WebTeam1
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Heat signatures can be masked</strong></span></p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3804429162?profile=original" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3804429162?profile=RESIZE_710x"></img></a></p>
<p><br></br> Firefighters need to understand how a thermal imager interprets heat signatures to successfully use this life-saving tool. (Photo courtesy of Bullard.)</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>By Manfred Kihn…</strong></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Heat signatures can be masked</strong></span></p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3804429162?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3804429162?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full"/></a></p>
<p><br/> Firefighters need to understand how a thermal imager interprets heat signatures to successfully use this life-saving tool. (Photo courtesy of Bullard.)</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>By Manfred Kihn</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">When looking through the lens of a thermal imager (TI), what is it you are looking at? We know that TIs are designed to process emitted infrared heat signatures and convert that information to an LCD screen to be interpreted by the firefighter. We also know that the basic shades are white (identifying objects as hot or warm), black (identifying objects as cold or cooler), and gray (for all the temperatures in between).</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">It’s important to note that the TI doesn’t really care how warm or cold an object is, simply how much warmer or colder it is than the object next to it, which brings us back to the question: What is it you are looking at? Keep reading to find the answers. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Remember, a TI is detecting Infrared Radiation (IR), also known as heat, which comes from anything with molecular activity, whether it be passive, active, or direct emitters. Emissivity is defined as a measure of a material’s ability to radiate absorbed energy. Picture a brick and a shirt lying on a sidewalk in Phoenix, Arizona, in July. Both warm up, but the brick absorbs more heat than the shirt and, once the sun goes down, the shirt gives its heat up faster than the brick. This means that the emissivity of the shirt is lower than the brick because it radiates heat faster. Defining passive, active, and direct emitters below will help us better understand what our TI is telling us: </span></p>
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<p><a href="https://firerescuemagazine.firefighternation.com/2020/01/06/interpreting-heat-signatures/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>READ MORE</strong></span></a></p> Bring Me That Thing That Beeps a Lot: Air Monitoring 101tag:my.firefighternation.com,2019-12-19:889755:Topic:67044742019-12-19T13:20:17.175ZFFN WebTeamhttps://my.firefighternation.com/profile/WebTeam1
<p></p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3777395089?profile=original" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3777395089?profile=RESIZE_710x"></img></a></p>
<h4><span style="font-size: 12pt;">As you monitor, you need to slow down</span></h4>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>By Alexander Oliver</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Why do we focus so much on-air monitoring? We all have experienced the 4 a.m. carbon monoxide alarm that roused everyone from that ever-so-elusive…</span></p>
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<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3777395089?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3777395089?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full"/></a></p>
<h4><span style="font-size: 12pt;">As you monitor, you need to slow down</span></h4>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>By Alexander Oliver</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Why do we focus so much on-air monitoring? We all have experienced the 4 a.m. carbon monoxide alarm that roused everyone from that ever-so-elusive good sleep at the station or a warm comfortable bed from home for volunteers. However, when the apparatus arrives on scene, you are the air monitor expert. Your fire department is qualifying that environment’s air as either safe for human occupancy or potentially dangerous. Qualifying the environment is a major responsibility. Your department inherits the liability for whatever outcome may happen in terms of air quality decisions. Think of it like this: What if it was your parent’s or grandparent’s home? You would want the responding fire department to be well versed, knowledgeable, and professional in their air monitoring skills and assessment. This service we provide to the public is one that unfortunately gets glossed over but is a vital function. Here are some easy tips that could help improve your fire department’s air monitoring.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">First, let’s look at how the air monitor works. I could tell you about the inner workings of the internal sensors, but let’s keep this straightforward. Each sensor essentially ionizes (or charges with energy) the air as it passes through the sensor. The monitor records a change in the total charge for that sensor, applies mathematical algorithms, and then displays a value on the monitor screen for the user to see. This process is not instantaneous. It takes time for these series of steps to take place. Based on the manufacturer of your air monitor sensor, this could be anywhere from 15 to 30 seconds. Always reference your manufacturer’s guidelines when trying to discover this “processing” time. </span></p>
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<p><a href="https://firerescuemagazine.firefighternation.com/2019/11/24/bring-me-that-thing-that-beeps-a-lot-air-monitoring-101/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>READ MORE</strong></a></p>