Any tips to make this more fun?

Im trying to come up with some drills to make training a little more fun for my guys. The drill Im working on now is a race: 3 firefighters line up and run/jog 10yds to first station were they put on their turnout gear then jog/run another 10yds to 2nd station were their SCBA and mask are setting (thinking about detatching HUD display so they will need to assemble it) they need to put on and be breathing air before running/jog 10 more yards to last station were they will have 50ft of 1 3/4" hose they will need to throw on their shoulder and run/jog back to were they started. Any ideas to make this last longer or be more fun. I am part of a rural dept so we dont have playgrounds or anything like that to use.

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Permalink Reply by Capt. Dixson on January 23, 2009 at 11:04pm

Wow, no ideas????

Permalink Reply by Jason Brooks on January 25, 2009 at 8:56am

You could get some old tires for a simulated force station. Have them hit the tire 15-20 times with a sledge. Dummy drags, low profile crawls (plywood over foam pails or five gallon buckets work), start saws, etc. You can be very creative on a limited or non-existent budget with what you have already.

Permalink Reply by Capt. Dixson on January 27, 2009 at 1:40pm

Thanks, Those are some really good ideas.

Permalink Reply by Chief 29 on January 28, 2009 at 3:29pm

Another thing to add to maybe make it a little more interesting would be advancing a charged line approximately 15 to 20 feet and operate the nozzle and give them a stationary target to hit with the water stream to end the drill

Permalink Reply by Padre Pete on May 5, 2009 at 10:16pm

Capt, If you've got a barn you dont need another playground. Throw up an up-ladder and a down-ladder and stay inside for the whole thing. How about extending it to include that part of a Mask Confidence course where participants just keeping moving, in a circle (maybe 50' diam) through a course of a few (just 3 or 4) simple obsticles . (stepping over something, going up and down 2-3 steps, croutching or crawling under or through something) and just keep going around until the last one runs out of air. He/she is the winner and the one to beat next time. Have a non participant get drill credit by keeping records of everyones time.

Permalink Reply by Capt./Chaplain Mike Petrosky on September 25, 2009 at 2:01pm

Hey, maybe once they finish the hose carry have them attach the hose into a attack line length and stretch it and do a search of the station or of some building in the response district. If they are going to do a search scenario, get a salemander portable heater and crank it up in the area to be searched, it will allow them to feel some heat and make it a little more realistic. How about maybe making a collapsable floor prop-make a base out of 2x4's and put a plywood sheet on it that will collapse at some point or be "bouncy" enough that they recognize that they may be in a precarious situation. How about adding a MAYDAY scenario, we ALL need to practice that. Good luck, Mike.

Permalink Reply by TIMOTHY L. WESTBERRY on October 14, 2009 at 1:22pm

Consider getting into clowning, you can include the kids into fire saftey skits,face painting etc.

Permalink Reply by wsetter on January 17, 2011 at 2:49pm

I went down to the local tire shop and grabbed two tires, one large tractor tire for hammering on and a large truck tire (285) for dragging around. The shop was more than willing to get rid of them. (no cost) we started by gearing up, (this time around we did not use SCBA). The FF would go to the engine and pull the pre-connect cross lay off and run it out its length (150') we shortened it to 100' so we could cycle through everyone faster. after the cross lay is out the FF would grab and carry two foam pails, approximately 50' to the tire drag. i used two eye hooks bolted into the tire with some webbing tied to them approx 3' in length each. we put some plywood in the bottom of the tire and placed both the foam pails inside the tire and would drag them back the 50' where the foam pails started. The next step is the large tractor tire. here we would have the FF stand on top of the tire and use a sledge hammer brought up over the shoulder and hit the tire 15 times. Next was the agility event. 4 pylons and a 5 gallon pail. the pylons are placed in the four corners of a square and the pail in the middle. we placed four tennis balls inside the pail and the FF has to grab one ball and balance it on top of the pylon until each pylon has a ball balanced on top of it. Next we had the FF connect a nozzle to a 1 1/2" roll and crawl under a door we had placed on top of four foam pails. the FF must take the hose and nozzle with them and crawl until they reached a designated finish point. after that we would have the FF report to our First Responders Rehab. While the event is running we had the FF relaying the cross lay and resetting the stations, we also had them on radios communicating with an IC who was in a command role inside another room. This is a low budget course and we had a lot of fun with it. It can be manipulated very easily each week by changing or adding a few more events or variations to the stations. I have drawn up a diagram if you would like to see a visual of this. I can email this if you like.

Permalink Reply by Kevin Riedinger on February 26, 2011 at 11:04am

Please upload the diagram. This sounds like a lot of fun and soemthing that can be modified fairly easily to meet each department needs.

Please share the diagram.

Permalink Reply by Nicholas on February 28, 2011 at 3:30am