How would one gauge experience in the fire service?

I was reading through this thread http://www.firefighternation.com/forum/topics/is-volunteer-experien... and it got me to thinking about this, so I figured I'd start a separate thread. How would you gauge the level of experience someone has in firefighting? I know with a lot of other jobs, most people usually go by years, but is it really the same with firefighting? Would someone who works a station that runs 200 calls annually have the same experience as someone who works a station that turns a 1000+ over the course of a year?

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Permalink Reply by Chad Furr on April 2, 2009 at 6:45pm

MY take on it is........ you fight a fire you put it out and live to tell about it that is exp. Rather you do 1000+ a yr with a pd or 20 a yr as a vollie. Only dif is 1000 is MORE exp than 20 not BETTER just more.

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Permalink Reply by Chief 29 on April 2, 2009 at 7:10pm

You raise a very good question and I am sure you will get a variety of answers. My thought on it is based on an individual basses. One could have all the certificates you could imagine but that in no way makes them qualified. Experience is gained through real life situations which I feel can only be gained through hands on. Calls and actual interaction in training. How well one absorbs the information and retains it as well, will carry over to their ability to think on the run and handle situations as they come up.
What I'm getting at is no matter how busy your department is experience to me comes with time in and your involvement overall. Actions speak louder than words and all it would take for someone to judge your experience would be to witness you at work doing what you do. If you are the type that sits at the back of the room during classes and are a yard bird on scene you will never gain true experience. Dig in and do something, yeah its hard work sometimes but it will pay off through time in the form of experience.

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Permalink Reply by Jeff Wright on April 2, 2009 at 8:21pm

My take is this. Years of experience and hours of training. You can have 1000s of hours of training, but if you don't have the experience, they are useless. There is no way that classroom training is anything like the real deal. Training and experience work hand in hand . I hear the younger members say we have trained on this before, and I tell them I trained on it more than they have, but see me training on it again.....

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Permalink Reply by FF Nick on April 2, 2009 at 11:37pm

This is right about in the neighborhood of what I was thinking.

You might be bringing in a lateral who has 5 years of experience, and in those 5 years he's only got 100 calls in?

I also know that with the shift departments it's jus the luck of the draw. C shift had WAY more calls than A and B did for 2008. So far this year B shift is out front (yeah I know there's still a while to go lol).

How would one gauge experience in the fire service?

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