How high is your bar set on your volunteer department? Are you well trained and professional in your actions or are you still part of the good ol’ boys club meeting every night to down a few and play some cards?

Firefighting has changed rapidly over the years. While we do not face the number of fires we saw decades ago, the fires we are facing are more dangerous. Building construction has changed making interior firefighting extremely dangerous for many. Light weight construction, engineered I-Beams, glues, plastics, synthetics all play apart on making the fire environment more toxic and hazardous to us.

The gear that we wear is better insulated which protects us better from the heat allowing us to get in deeper and closer to the fire. It also traps in heat and can dehydrate us quickly too. We are now covered from head to toe with no parts of our body exposed. Gone are the days when we can rely on the heat on our ears to tell us we are getting too close to a fire. We are either getting braver or dumber depending on your point of view. Just watch the following video and you’ll get the idea:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvHBnRgAO3o

In addition to fire fighting, the fire department has become a Jack of All Trades. Who do they call when there is a fire? The fire department. Who do they call when there is an accident? The fire department. Who do they call when there is an explosion? The fire department. Who do they call when there is a natural disaster? The fire department? Who do they call when they don’t know what to do? The fire Department.

The fire department is expected to know what to do in all situations. As a volunteer how can we be prepared to do this? How can we have the experience and knowledge to be able to adapt and tackle any situation?

The answer is that we can’t. We have limitations and in order to overcome them we need to recognize and admit these limitations. We have limitations on equipment and resources. There are limitations on personnel and experience. There are limitations on training – both time available and funding for.

In order to serve our community in the best way possible we need to take stock of what we have, what we can do, what we can improve on, what we are excluded from, and what we desire to become. Then we need to form a plan to achieve our goals. Fundamental to everything that we do is education and training.

Education is the book learning. Reading and studying about techniques, concepts, theories, ideas will give us the foundation to start working on our training. Without having the knowledge and education we will not be fully prepared to tackle the problem. How does knowledge of fire behavior help make us better firefighters? How does knowing the flow of blood through the body effect our treatment of a hemorrhaging patient? How does knowing geometry assist us in stabilizing a vehicle or structure?

The follow up on education is training. Once we have the foundation down we need to build something on it. The question is do you want to build a house of straw or a house of brick? Dedication and consistency is necessary. We need to have the basics down and be able to do them automatically.

Through education and training we can overcome many of the obstacles that face volunteer departments. The ability to draw from our experiences and what we have learned will allow us to adapt to the myriad of situations we encounter. We will know what we can tackle ourselves and what we need to call in assistance for.

The bottom line is that we need to set the bar as high as we can for ourselves. It should be a source of pride and integrity for us. If all we want is to hang around with friends and down a few longnecks and call ourselves firefighters, then we have grossly neglected the public trust placed in us. We need to reach for the stars and while we may not ever reach them, we will end up standing taller because of it.