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What does it mean to be a Smoke Diver?
Do you have what it takes to be a Smoke Diver? Many have tried but been denied by thier own limitations. Yep, thats right, your limitations! I know that firefighting is about team work, but here at the Mississippi Fire Academy, we teach you about yourself as well. The Goals Have Been Set, Can You Measure Up?
The man that says; "I can't" and the man that says; "Ican" are both correct, which one are you?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by lutan1 on
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do you want someone coming to get you that knows only one way of doing things or would you ratherthey be well versed in all aspects of the rescue buisness.
So train them all! That way we're guaranteed to get the best possible rescue....
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I thought the point was that Everybody Goes Home, not "...stand here and die."
Ben for President! Well said....
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Permalink Reply by Rescue601 on
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I reside in MS and as a vollie on a combination department I can't afford to take a week vacation to attend the class. I have my FF1 as well as my EMT-B so I am trained on the basics. Until the MS fire academy understands these limitations and decides to offer other courses the Smoke Diver cert will remain elitist.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Vito on
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I wonder, why a soldier calls himself a rifleman but he is already in the infantry. That's my metaphor.
In my opinion, this concepts sounds elitism. I believe, those drills and trainings are to be taught from the very beginning of recruit training. Is it the whole point is to reduce LODD cases and live up to the motto "everyone should go home"
that motto "...stand here and die." is questionable.
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Permalink Reply by Boomer on
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It is obvious to me after taking a good look at all of the comments that those of you with out this type of program in your area, really have no clue as to what its all about. Those of us that have gone through this training and understand its benifits to you as an individual can talk till we are blue in the face but until you experience it you wont understand. Those select few who want to be the best they can for their own benifit understand what its like to be taken to the brink of exhaustion and be asked to go farther just on more step just a little more. So if you ever find yourself in that situation that you have to get out but dont think you can or after a long haul in your partner goes down and you are his only hope you find the strength, the courage, the determination to contine to stand and fight and bring you both out safely. This is the reasoning behind the I shall stand here and fight OR ( i cant make the OR any clearer its a choice) I shall stand here and die. If you chose not to keep fighting when you think you can fight no longer you will die. So push youself fall back on what you have learned in this class understand that although you are running on empty you feel as though you have nothing left to give you know you can go further. This class is a choice not all will choose it not all will have the mental strength to finish there is gonna be a point when your mind says to your a*@ what am I doing I cant contine this. Those that dig a little deeper and find it in them to shut that little voice out will have learned alot about themselves and just what they can accomplish. Real world application 2 firefighters in my dept. finished this class and found themselves a few weeks later at a fire. As usual with my dept. as aggresive as we are after making entry fighting fire and searching found a rather large woman. Half way through the rescue one looked to the other and said he couldnt anymore "just didnt have anything left" the other said remember you got more. Long story short they both said had it not been for the things they learned about themselves she would have had to wait for additional FF's and probably not made it alive. True story take it for what you will but dont be so closed minded about something you cant understand.
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Boomer wrote, "Long story short they both said had it not been for the things they learned about themselves she would have had to wait for additional FF's and probably not made it alive. True story take it for what you will but dont be so closed minded about something you cant understand."
Smoke Diver wrote, "There are only about 700 smoke divers in the world. "
So I say it again, Why not train everyone to the same level and endurance?
I would hope that if I'm trapped, I don't have to wait for 1 of the 700 that are trained to come and get me...
As for being closed minded, a number of people have raised some really good and relevant questions in this discussion in an effort to get their head around why this is so good, but it would appear that many have had no answers given.
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the training is offerd to everyone all are welcome to try but the fact is only a few are physically able to perform under these conditions that is why there are qualifing many have made it only to drop out half way though because they cant do it. Not that we are better but that they were not physically or mentaly prepared for it . Not to mention it takes about 2 to 3 instructors for every 1 student so we can only accomodate 25-30 at a time in order to complete the class in a week. I dont know how it is where you are butI know of many depts. mine included where there are some who are here to do only the minimum and get away with as little as possible and you probably dont want them with you in that type of situation anyway.
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Permalink Reply by Andy Entwistle on
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Thanks, Joe, it does. And I'm glad it works for you - I'm sure it adds a layer of confidence and safety. And I suspect you have more, and bigger fires out your way - we're pretty rural.
Just for kicks, I thought back to our last few fires - which interiors made the truck - and there were several in which a couple of the crew had under 3 years on the dept., which means we couldn't have manned the truck under SD standards. We have roughly 17 interiors, out of 30, but for us that means NY FF1, so you would knock off about five with under three years. The kicker is that they are the young, strong guys who make the calls. Only 5 of our interiors are under age 40, about 4 are over 60 and only pack-up under real shortage conditions.
We don't use the same standard on mutual aid - we don't always have even numbers responding, so plenty of times we pair up with guys we don't know from neighboring departments. The staging officer of our local companies checks for the FFs 'interior' tag - if it's there, good to go. All depts. here issue that after FF1 completion. When he says "you and you", they go, regardless of dept.
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Permalink Reply by Charlie on
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"Today’s firefighters are getting seriously injured and killed because of failures in decision making, because of a lack of situational awareness, or lack of orientation to the environment."
This statement came straight from the data produced by the IAFC Near Miss Reporting Data Base.
Many of the cardiac related deaths are caused by a lack of leadership by the department chief’s not having mandatory medicals and ignoring out of shape guys and letting them continue to respond to incidents because they don’t want to hurt anyone’s feeling by telling them they can’t be a firefighter. Ga. Smoke Divers teaches individual responsibility and having the courage to do what is right even if it means hurting someone’s feelings. So yes, many of these cardiac related incidents are a failure of decision making on the part of the individual and on the department management.
The skill performance requirements meet or exceed all current NFPA, NPQ minimum standards. There are no current standards on being squared away, leadership and decision making.
Smoke Divers is training you beyond tasks, it is teaching you a way of life that makes you a better person, firefighter, leader and mentor. Anyone focusing strictly on the task skills is missing the whole concept.
The impact that Smoke Divers has on a per state bases is impossible to statistically compute because the greatest benefit of the program is that it inspires individuals to become leaders and make changes that prevent FF injuries and deaths in their own departments. We do not have the means to keep stats on the impacts that our graduates have had on their departments. But we see who making a difference.
A far as cost, I guess you can stand a guy in front of 1000 people and they can watch a power point for 3-4 hours and you can give everyone a certificate proclaiming they are now going to be safe. That will probably only cost you about $1000 once you have paid airfare, hotel, meals and speaking fees. Wow! That is training for only a $1 per person what a deal.
The Ga. Smoke Diver Association gets reimbursed for $4,999 worth of expenses per class. No instructor from the top to the bottom receives a single cent and 50 instructors spend 6 12 hour days teaching skills, leadership, decision making, fitness, command, situational awareness and the list goes on……. Now those 20 or so graduates will go back and infect 15-20 different departments with real leadership, a passion for mentoring and training others in what they have learned, a commitment to a lifetime of self improvement including both mental and physical fitness.
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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"We only have one President at a time."
Barak Obama, 2008
:-)
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That was exactly my point, and it's what we do at my department.
Many of the "Smoke Diver" skills are actually basic firefighter and RIT skills.
Several studies show that it usually takes several teams of firefighter to affect a rescue of a downed, lost, or trapped firefighter, not just one or two well-trained smoke divers.
Here's an International Association of Fire Chief's report on the Phoenix and Seattle studies and their conclusions: http://www.iafc.org/displayindustryarticle.cfm?articlenbr=27329
Key points from this research - "Following the tragedy, Phoenix conducted one of the largest open investigations ever conducted by a fire department. It included an investigation of what happened; a recovery plan to implement changes in training, procedures, and equipment based on lessons learned; and a research effort regarding rapid intervention team effectiveness. This research project involved searching a large square footage building for a lost fire fighter.
Concurrently, and independently, the Seattle, Wash., Fire Department conducted a similar research study of rapid intervention effectiveness in large square footage buildings. Several hundred search and rescue exercises were conducted by the two departments and data carefully collected. These two projects, though separate research efforts, interestingly, came to nearly identical conclusions.
First, the fire service grossly under estimated both the resources and the time required to enter the building, find the fire fighter and remove the fire fighter to safety. Four members of a rapid intervention team didn’t do it; neither did six, nor eight, nor 10! The average number of fire fighters required in the Seattle study to affect a rescue was 11; Phoenix determined 12 were needed.
And how long did it take to get the downed fire fighter out of the building? Seattle’s research indicated 20 minutes was average and Phoenix came in at 21 minutes. This is a very long period of time and certainly a fatal period if the fire fighter is out of air! Think about it. We barely get 20 minutes of work time out of the typical “30 minute” SCBA bottle."
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Charlie,
"Today’s firefighters are getting seriously injured and killed because of failures in decision making, because of a lack of situational awareness, or lack of orientation to the environment."
This statement came straight from the data produced by the IAFC Near Miss Reporting Data Base.
That is accurate, but some of the smoke divers here seem to be saying that there are only two options - be a smoke diver, or watch a power point, sit on the couch, eat ding-dongs, and die the next time you're around a little fire. That implication isn't accurate. There are many ways to get virtually all of the skills taught in smoke diver classes without attending a smoke diver class. My state fire academy and department both teach virtually everything that's contained in the smoke diver class, we just don't do it all at once. The bottom line is that there are many training options in between smoke diver and just watching a power point.
Ditto for the leadership, size-up, strategy and tactics, and other skills. Those are skills, too, they're just mental skills, not physical skills.
As for the "get in shape or die", old research doesn't tell the whole story. Neither does the IAFC statement you cited above. Here's some new research:
"A long term study of Stress in Civil Servants in the United Kingdom explains how stress at work is linked to heart disease.
This comes from a long running Whitehall study which has been following 10,306 London based civil servants since 1985 and which is led by Sir Michael Marmot, professor of epidemiology and public health at University College London U.K. The entire document on this subject is available on line: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/printerfriendlynews.php?newsid=04641 or http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/
Of note for firefighters: "Adjusting for health behaviours did not change the association between work stress and low heart rate variablitity, suggesting a direct effect on the ANS (autonomic nervous system which regulates involuntary actions, such as actions of the heart by the vagus nerve, telling it how to work and controlling the variability of the heart rate)....and neuroendocrine functions, rather than indirect effects through health behaviours" as a quote by Dr. Tarani Chandola, a senior lecturer in UCL Deptartment of Epidermiology.
For firefighterveterans this means that even if you get "heart healthy" and are 100 percent fit...the outcome of the stress impact on your coronary arteries is going to be significant if you do not adjust for stress from the work we are doing... The effect of long term stress without lifestyle changes inclusive of not just physical health but rehab from the stress with breaks that include family and friends can affect your health outcome."
From: http://thekitchentable.firerescue1.com/
Is it possible that smoke diver training would increase this stress? No real data exists either way yet, but that means that we can't scientifically rule it out, either. I'm especially interested in how this could affect firefighters who engage in less-than-ideal practices like engaging in PT in turnout gear or hot zone SCBA cylinder exchanges.
The bottom line is that there are alternatives to improve firefighter safety and health, and ways to teach firefighter survival and RIT skills outside of a smoke diver class. Delivering that training to a larger group of firefighters seems as if it would impact a far wider audience, and thus, have more direct impact on long-term LODD reduction. There are ways to do it in a local fire department, too.
For example, if I were in a department that did not have Universal Rescue Connectors on our SCBA, I'd look to spend the money on URCs to improve safety for my entire department, not on a class that only a few people can attend.
"If you can't measure a thing, you can't improve the thing." - Quality Improvement maxim, attributed to W. Edwards Deming.
"In God we trust, all others bring data." W. Edwards Deming
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