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Comment by Norman E. Flanders on February 24, 2009 at 9:14am

Training videos are great but there are other things that your FD can do to enhance training. I'll share a few ideas that should help you in your quest for training ideas.

* I will get training ideas from FIREHOUSE.COM, FIREENGINEERING.COM, FIREFIGHTERCLOSECALLS.COM and other web sites. Great places for information and drill downloads.

* Do inter-department drills with our surrounding mutual aid departments. These have been very successful especially when it comes to RIT. My department hosted a RIT training class and exercise. We used a mobile home for training. Great place to train with confined space. We have also do SCBA training. It's unlimited as to what you can do.

* Visit your local EMS/Mutual Aid Dept's. for training on their equipment. Covering vehicle layout, compartment contents, and vehicle operation. Great way for PR and interaction. Some day you may be asked to get a widget and you'll know where to find it.

* Tour your local businesses and manufacturing facilities. Great for PR. We have also done simulated fires at some of these businesses. Have put FF in the buildings for search & rescue.
We do prearrange these with the business, go over our goals and plans. We give each business a guide sheet that covers the important stuff, { see below}.You be amazed at the positive responses and how happy they are that we take the time to tour and train at their facility.

* Have your surrounding mutual aid departments tour the key facilities in our town. This has been done for two reasons. One is for mutual aid response and the other is for mutual aid coverage. If they are covering my town I want them to be aware of where your going and what they may have to respond to.

* Table Top exercises. I have downloaded many photo's of fires, MVA's, etc. for training purposes. These photos are then assigned an incident type, given a location, what is available for equipment & manpower.....then you are the IC.
To make it more interesting another incident may be added while en route or while trying to control this one.
{ I have these for use if you want some.....see below}.

* Area Familiarization. Nothing is more important than "KNOWING" your own community. This should include street/road names, key points of interest, water sources; winter/summer supplies, local businesses, do you have handicapped residence that need special attention, do they have O2, ask your members to really look at your community and list what they see on the ride to work/home, share what they have listed, etc.

* Ask your local fire investigator to give a class on 'METH LAB AWARENESS and/or SCENE PRESERVATION" Very important items for the fire service. If you set up the class ask your surrounding departments if they have anyone who'd like to attend. Great for inter-dept. PR.

If you want any of the photos I've downloaded with drills e-mail me at nrs5f@comcast.net and I'll send you out a few along with the check sheet.

Best of luck in your quest to better train.

Stay safe, train often and share knowledge. Norm