Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mike Moore on May 28, 2008 at 10:37am

Lots of good training/drills on firehouse.com...we also use a number of training ideas from the Firefighter Essentials book.

Permalink Reply by Mike Schlags (Captain Busy) Retd on June 8, 2008 at 4:53am

Hey Josh, I work full time as a Fire Captain for the Santa Barbara County Fire Department which is located in California. I've been involved in EMS / Fire Service since the 70's... Making me an old guy now... My department is an all risk department which means that we basically handle anything that comes up... and well. When I promoted to Captain, I needed to come up with a simple way to organize my thoughts and the call. What I came up with was a simple acronym: SCARIE-PMS. This acronym can be used on any call even though I originally designed it to be used for Hazmat WMD incidents. The words themselves share the fact that going on these calls is a scary thing sometimes. There are a number of way to keep this memorized but things like paramedics are scary, hazmat calls are scary at night, the obvious "PMS" is scary or as one of my guys put it Scary Person Mike Schlags, which is my name... Anyway, here's the order of how calls should be run...

S - Size up
C - Establish Command
A - Ask for asssistance
R - Determine whether you need to do a rescue
I - Isolate the incident (hot, warm, cold zones)
E - Evacuate (or shelter in place)

P - Person responsible needs to be identified to act as a liaison
M - Material identification (if safe to do so)
S - Always think Safety!

So now, when you are "training" and attempting to develop good company officer skills, which means organization of the call and your resources, maybe this acronym might prove useful for you.

Take care brother,

Mike

Permalink Reply by josh on June 9, 2008 at 2:24pm

thank you i will try this out

Permalink Reply by josh on June 9, 2008 at 2:24pm

thanks for the information

Permalink Reply by Jason Thomas on July 13, 2008 at 12:39am

I feel your pain I too am the training officer with O$$$ for a training. last week we went our local salvage yard and practiced vehicle firefighting. we didn't actually burn any cars but we did let off a few military smoke bombs off under the hood for more realism. this cost me nothing. same location we go there 2 times a year to practice extrication, again free. hope this helps

Permalink Reply by Tony on August 10, 2008 at 4:05pm

Josh,
Just remember K.I.S.S (keep it simple silly). With having a rather young department stick with the basics. Hitting hydrants, pulling lines, donnig and doffing PPE and SCBA, Ladder raises, operating nozzles, and basic fire behavior. Oh yeah don't forget safety and survival techniques. Refer to training text such as Fundamental of Firefighting by Jones and Bartlett.
Be Safe - Stay Low