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Permalink Reply by Adam Box on February 17, 2009 at 11:59pm

thanks for the input, but i meant, more of does your guy carrying the water can bring in a pike pole too? does your guy carrying the TIC bring in a tool as well?

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Permalink Reply by sully on February 18, 2009 at 12:08am

my favorite tool is the haligan bar. that tools ais a master key for anything. i have uesed that tool to get out of some weird places. but that is my tool of choice.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Montpetit on February 18, 2009 at 2:32am

Depends totally on the call...usually one tool per man.....Paul

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Permalink Reply by Tony P on February 18, 2009 at 6:39am

Whenever a tool is needed, the nearest available person is sent to get it... We don't assign tools to seats to people. Just grab what's needed when it's needed.

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Permalink Reply by Adam Box on February 18, 2009 at 10:28am

ok, I'll give you an example (not that any of you are giving me wrong or unappreciated input. just clarifying why I'm asking this question.)

Last night we were called to an industrial complex for a piece of machinery that was smoking. it was quickly ascertained by the chief on scene that it was the sawdust vacuum system and that there was the possibility of fire in the pipe system.

My engine was second in. we were told the other engine had only brought in a TIC, a dry chem, and a water can. My engine had a driver, an officer, and two interior FFs. We had no idea when the next unit in would be (Ladder had just been dispatched. With volunteers, they kinda trickle in and you don't know who you're getting.)

It was decided that the officer would grab the other tic and dry chem, I'd take the water can and an 8' pike. the other guy would grab the irons. (we usually all try to grab lights)

And now I might be pulling out my soapbox a bit but speaking as a volunteer, one of the problems of the volunteer system is that many volunteers need to be told what to do. We'll get a working fire and instead of taking stock of what's happening and what needs to happen, many volunteers will just mill around with no tools and often, no packs. If they do grab tools, it always seems that we have 5 people standing around with irons (or just a haligan) and no hooks. I'm not an officer and I often find myself asking other firefighters (some of them with more time on than me) "So are you gonna grab a tool or what?" and all I get is a confused look or a "Should I? What should I get?" So for those cases I was curious what tools were reasonable to ask one person to get.

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Permalink Reply by Tony P on February 18, 2009 at 5:18pm

I see your 'problem of the volunteer system' as being more a problem of poor leadership.

Instead of everybody grabbing what they want, what they like to carry, doing what they want to do, we expect that our crew leader will allocate at least an initial task to each member of the crew. If not the 1st vehicle on scene, if tasks are not immediately obvious ie no visible smoke or flame, then the crew leader will normally take one other member and go to the incident controller for instruction - the rest of the crew remain in the vehicle.

The action you describe could have every member of the crew grabbing what he or she wants and then 'milling around' in a group behind the crew leader (or officer, whatever). If your crew doesn't happen to have what the IC wants then they all have to go back to the truck anyway.

Poor leadership, this can occur with any system, volunteer or career. Being paid to be an officer doesn't automatically make you a good leader; doing a training course doesn't automatically make you a good leader. Just as neither pay nor training will guarantee that you will be a good firefighter.

I'm not having a go at either career or volunteer. I've seen good and not so good leadership from people in both systems. I've seen good and not so good firefighter skills from people in both systems.

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Permalink Reply by Mike Schlags (Captain Busy) Retd on February 18, 2009 at 5:54pm

I think the only situation where there are organized assignments is when you are dealing with truck company ops. Specific tasks are assigned, dependent upon which position you work... I can't see Australia having a ton of truck companies in the outback... hence your lack of familiarity with this?

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