They are absolutely useful as a training tool. It is the one dimentional firefighters who are "perfect" that fail to see fault in anything they did wrong to make the changes to improve what they did for next time.
Permalink Reply by Alan on January 31, 2009 at 7:50pm
Its a good tool for the company to use to see how the scene at went. Also, its a historical purpose behind it. We've been taking pictures for several years now from some of the emergencies we've been on.
Training tools are priceless and photography is one of those tools. the manner in which they are used and or displayed must be closely monitored though. I also agree with the reply from Alan. Pictures and or videos become a wonderful part of your companies history.
I think they can be very useful but you have to watch you do not get any pictures of victims in them because in the wrong hands they could get you in hot water.
I believe they are very much an important tool. We have a department photographer. We utilize the pictures in our critiquqes after every structure fire and we just started using them at m.v.a.
AS AN INSTRUCTOR FOR THE DEPART. I WORK FOR THE LAW SAYS IN TENNESSEE ,IF YOU TAKE A PHOTO OF A WORKING FIRE OR TRAINING ,YOU HAVE A HAVE EVERYONE IN THE PICTURE SIGN A RELEASE TO BE A ABLE TO USE THE PHOTS TO SHOW TO ANYONE,THEREFORE I DONT TAKE PICTURES
So does that law go for the press? We try to discuss any issues during critique about how far to let the pics out plus this gives you a chance to see if the same person is showing up on all calls . I agree pics shouldn't be out if someone lost a life but if a law wants a release form for the fire dept then it should stand with the media also. They shoot the same pics that we do...
Where I am, any picture that is in the public eye i.e. something that anybody could have walked up and scene is ok to share, but if there is something that is not, you need a release or to blur the faces
Nothing wrong with it, it will help with making the next call run better as far as operations. It also is a part of a department's history. We just had our 100th anniversary and we were looking for pictures of fires that happened in the past as well as other pictures from our history. You can learn a lot from pictures...