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Shane Ray's "Rethinking Volunteer Firefighter Certification" article will make some waves...
The new superintendant of the South Carolina Fire Academy asks some tough question and offers some creative solutions to the problem of volunteer firefighter certification and just what that should mean.
Here's the article: http://www.firefighternation.com/article/training-0/rethinking-volu...
It is thought-provoking, to say the least. What do you guys think?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Bob Callahan on
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Don ....
Please tell me where anybody has said that a fire department should not be able to conduct interior operations. I think everyone would agree that we would love to have all of our personnel capable of operating interior, but that is simply not, in many places in rural America, realistic. Experienced personnel age and can no longer operate inside. Members of the community volunteer who may not be able to or may not want to operate interior for a variety of very legitimate time, physical or psychological reasons. In a community of 2000 where volunteers are limited in makes no sense to turn them away. None.
Yes, we often disagree on the need and justification for interior operations, however, that being said, departments should be able to conduct at least basic interior search/rescue and holding operations, however as I have stated before, by recognizing the need and value of an exterior certification, we are not discouraging personnel from obtaining interior qualification, but we are simply recognizing the need for in many, many places and the value of exterior members and giving them a chance to obtain a professional certification for what they are trained to do.
And there will always be departments that cannot operate interior all or part of the time for a variety of very valid reasons through no fault of their own. IMO, they are still fire departments staffed by firefighters. You don't seem to recognize that while I do. Yes, we will always disagree on that.
As far as perception, maybe where you come from there is that perception. In know in my last VFD, the community, as well as most other neighboring communities had that perception, and by and large the departments were able to meet that perception because of the manpower pool and funding through property taxes for training, apparatus, PPE and communications was available to provide what the departments needed.
The same is true with my combo department as we have community size to provide a manpower pool and funding capable of providing us what we need to meet those perceptions, though most of the folks in the more rural areas fully understand that the response time that they have chosen (by choosing to live that far out) may cause problems.
The same is not true with the small VFDs in very small, rural communities in the northern part of my parish and most of my volunteer parish. By and large, the community knows what they are getting and fully understand the limitations of the fire department. There is no perception that they will be there in 5 minutes with a fully staffed truck capable of dealing with every situation. They simply know what the department has to offer and know that what they pay in taxes is a fraction of what "city folks" pay for city-level services.
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Permalink Reply by Don Catenacci on
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Bobby,
My answers will be in bold inside your comments.
Don ....
Please tell me where anybody has said that a fire department should not be able to conduct interior operations. I think everyone would agree that we would love to have all of our personnel capable of operating interior, but that is simply not, in many places in rural America, realistic. Experienced personnel age and can no longer operate inside. Members of the community volunteer who may not be able to or may not want to operate interior for a variety of very legitimate time, physical or psychological reasons. In a community of 2000 where volunteers are limited in makes no sense to turn them away. None.
Makes me wonder how my community of 700, with over 200 being in the nursing home does it...Same with the other community I am a POC FF for with a population of around 1000. Both are small rural communities, in a mostly rural county and yet we get members, one has a list of potetntial members waiting for openings, that go to training, most are FF1, and will go interior for firefighting and rescue. Are we that much more community minded and hardy in Wisconsin?
Yes, we often disagree on the need and justification for interior operations, however, that being said, departments should be able to conduct at least basic interior search/rescue and holding operations, however as I have stated before, by recognizing the need and value of an exterior certification, we are not discouraging personnel from obtaining interior qualification, but we are simply recognizing the need for in many, many places and the value of exterior members and giving them a chance to obtain a professional certification for what they are trained to do.
If you have 20 members and all are interior certified they are capable of both interior and exterior work at a fire. There is never a doubt of having interior qualified firefighters.
If you have 20 members and 10 are exterior only, and 10 are interior qualified, what happens when 10 exterior and 1 or 2 interior firefighter shows up for a fire? Doesn't take much to see that that home owner gets far less service, including no interior firefighting and no search and rescue. What a bargain.
And there will always be departments that cannot operate interior all or part of the time for a variety of very valid reasons through no fault of their own. IMO, they are still fire departments staffed by firefighters. You don't seem to recognize that while I do. Yes, we will always disagree on that.
And we always will disagree. You find it easier to lessen the requirements of what it takes to be a firefighter in order to have bodies to fill slots on your volly FDs. I find it smarter to attempt to bring people up and to implement higher standards to improve the quality of the protection we provide. My little rural POC FD has added the requirement of FF1 within a year of membership, and added FADO if you want to drive. We are adding First Responder training coming this fall. How do we do it and maintain a full roster? Because apparently making standards is supposed to chase applicants away.
If I call the fire department I expect them, if the fire allows, to go inside and put the fire out. I also expect them to be able to attempt to rescue my loved ones. Anything less is not firefighters or a fire department in my opinion.
As far as perception, maybe where you come from there is that perception. In know in my last VFD, the community, as well as most other neighboring communities had that perception, and by and large the departments were able to meet that perception because of the manpower pool and funding through property taxes for training, apparatus, PPE and communications was available to provide what the departments needed.
Because that is wht people expect. A FIRE DEPARTMENT staffed with FIREFIGHTERS that will go inside when possible to save their lives an put out the fire. It boggles the mind that you believe otherwise.
The same is true with my combo department as we have community size to provide a manpower pool and funding capable of providing us what we need to meet those perceptions, though most of the folks in the more rural areas fully understand that the response time that they have chosen (by choosing to live that far out) may cause problems.Response time is a completely different issue than having a fire department that may or may not EVER go interior to save lives and property. If people make the decision to live a distance from the FD they accept that risk, knowing full wel the travel time for the FD will be greater. If they live in town and the FD shows up in minutes, won;t go inside to put out the fire or save lives because they have inadequate personnel and thy haven't made it clear to the citizens that that may happen they have misrepresented what services they will supply. Don't tell me people know, if you haven't made it explicitly clear that is the case they don't know and you know it.
The same is not true with the small VFDs in very small, rural communities in the northern part of my parish and most of my volunteer parish. By and large, the community knows what they are getting and fully understand the limitations of the fire department. There is no perception that they will be there in 5 minutes with a fully staffed truck capable of dealing with every situation. They simply know what the department has to offer and know that what they pay in taxes is a fraction of what "city folks" pay for city-level services.IF YOU HAVEN'T EXPLICITLY TOLD THEM THE LEVEL OF FIRE PROTECTION THEY ARE GETTING YOU ARE FOOLING YOURSELF. They don't give a DAMN what you believe they understand when their house is on fire and their baby, husband, wife, gramma, grampa, friend , cousin, girlfriend, boyfriend, or anyone else is trapped inside a burning building. They are going to yell at you, scream at you, swear at you, and perhaps physically assault you if you don't even try to save them.
Answer this simple straight forward question. Have these FDs through a letter to its citizens, a community meeting, or a public declaration at a local governing body meeting, made it clear what the level of fire protection they will provide consists of? Because your absolutely ludicrous statements of 5 minute arrival, fully staffed, able to deal with anything is a cop out and you know it. Whether the FD shows up in 5 or 10 minutes people have an expectation of service.
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Permalink Reply by Jack/dt on
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Bob,
You make a sound argument, right up until the end when it starts to fall apart a bit. You point out there are no mandatory 'national standards' and everything is left up to the state (and, as you said, often up to individual fire departments) and the requirements vary from department to department and state to state and what training one has in one state (or department) may not be accepted elsewhere. This being the case, don't you think it a bit ironic that for the least trained individual in a fire department, we're talking about certification and training for throwing ladders?
Maybe the concentration NEEDS to be that all states, all departments and all individuals be held to NFPA 1001 standards (of course, I'm referencing *structural firefighters* here only). Once that is accomplished then maybe there's a need for certifying 'exterior' personnel.
With only 80 hours (or much less, and perhaps none) states and communities are allowing untrained or ill trained personnel be interior firefighters, and for what seems to be for the sake of making do. So since, as you pointed out the requirement to be a 'firefighter' is so lacking in so many places, and that one can simply be 'knighted' and henceforth known as a firefighter, the idea of establishing training and certifications for someone to be able to pull tools or throw ladders is laughable. It's as if the focus is now on handing out certificates once a person learns where to find the irons or water can (of course knowing how to use them would probably mean further certification.)
I find it appalling that anyone can accept that their fire department may not show up for 15 minutes or more, that they may not have (enough) personnel to effect a rescue and they are all good with that because their taxes aren't as high as 'city folks.'
Maybe it's time to shut the doors of fire departments that can't muster enough people to do what needs to be done. After all, if the residents of a community, or the county or state don't care enough (other than to lower -if they even bother to have any- standards) to provide for adequate fire protection, through taxation or volunteerism, then it seems pointless for those few willing to give it a try to put themselves at risk for a population that doesn't give a shit.
Between my comments and everyone elses, the root issue (at least for me) has coalesced into this: We're talking about training and certifying people for exterior tasks only so as to either free up interior firefighters or because exterior firefighting is the only option for many communities, rather than discussing the need for communities, counties and states (and maybe even the federal government) to provide whatever is necessary to provide an acceptable level of fire protection.
It's 2011 and yet too many people are more than content with fighting fires in ways hardly different from those of the 1800's (and even 1700's). I, as have others, raised the issue of why it is that fire fighting is the only essential service still provided by volunteers. Police protection is considered a necessity, as is highway maintenance yet neither are performed on a volunteer basis. Quite likely the qualifications to be a school bus driver are of a higher standard than are those to be a firefighter in so many places.
Providing training and certifications for people not willing to put themselves in danger (for whatever reason(s)) means that a department may be able to entice more people to join and they may have a spectacular showing on the fireground with all the bodies but it fails to address making the level of fire protection better. Mostly, it's a band-aid, stop-gap measure; at best a holding position trying to maintain whatever level of fire protection exists. But it doesn't address the problem: Getting willing, capable people trained to perform all duties on the fire ground.
Why instead, isn't the focus on getting state and federal legislation passed that give volunteer (interior) firefighters tax breaks in the form of tax abatements, not taxing per-call stipends as income, breaks on local taxes or fees or providing health care benefits (in those poorer communities that itself would be a godsend.) Provide local tax breaks and or federal tax breaks for employers that release employees to respond to calls. Provide (or provide better) retirement benefits for those vollies that have served their community for 20, 30 or 50 years.
Instead, the discussion is on certifying people who might just as well be CERT members, because in the end, it's less about providing adequate fire protection and more about making sure everyone gets the chance to 'serve', in whatever capacity they choose. Meanwhile we'll debate 'what is "is"', parse every little thing and require we all define our terms from the get go while blithely ignoring the real elephant in the room: the failure of communities to provide for an acceptable level of fire protection.
No community should be forced to pay for a fire department, so long as they can provide either the personnel or the funding to induce others to do it for them. But when a community fails to provide for their own fire protection then it should fall on higher authority to require the community to do so, even if it means higher taxes. After all, all residents are taxed to support their local school system, even those that don't have children. Yet if enough people decide they are happy with the paltry fire protection available to them for the benefit of low taxes, those people that would be willing to pay more for better fire protection are denied it and are forced to accept below par service because the majority prefers lower taxes. Or become a firefighter themselves.
So yeah, let's crank out those certificates suitable for framing, let's keep denying that in many places the volunteer fire service is slowly dying (and not coincidentally, some number of volunteer firefighters) simply because enough people don't give a shit, about their own safety, much less that of their neighbors. I believe the phrase is "Shuffling chairs on the Titanic."
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Jack/dt,
We haven't always agreed but this is a post I can agree 100% with. Strong work Brother!
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Permalink Reply by Jason Clatt on
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lawsuit....if there is no standard of training for volunteer firefinghters in ks then how will there be a lawsuite..each state is different...as long as you are complying with nfpa.. then what is the issue with a lawsuit.....BUT...THERE NEEDS TO BE A STANDARD OF TRAINING FOR VOLUNTEERS .period end of discussion....the problem lies in getting people that work a 50hr + week to train and get the needed certificates
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I keep hearing about the demands on volunteers regarding time. I wonder hearing this how I manage to do it. I am a career firefighter and I work a 56 hour work week, I teach anywhere from 2 to 4 days and/or nights a week for the local tech college, I am a member of 2 POC FDs where I serve as training officer and I only miss training if I am working, serve on our local EMS District Board, and have a wife and 2 sons and 2 step daughters.
The time argument is usually nothing more than an excuse. Those same people that say they have no time for training make choices everyday. Training or softball, training or dart league, training or bowlin, training or sit on my ass watching tv, and the list goes on...it has less to do with time than it has to do with dedication.
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This discussion keeps going round and round, and obviously we will not agree.
You seem to see the exterior firefighter certification as a way for a department to inflate the numbers of their members and fool the community into thinking they can provide an adequate response. You seem to beleive that all firefighters should be interior, and that an exterior certification will give members a "way out" of having to become interior certified - NFPA 1001 or some other certification. If you feel that way, I doubt I will ever change your mind.
It's great that you can recruit enough members to be choosy enough to require that they all are physically capable of and want to operate interior. Again, in many places that is not and never will be the case. So if you oppose the idea of exterior certified members, what exactly is your solution, and recruiting is not an option? What is your solution for putting enough members on the fireground to perform all tasks? Auto aid? Sure, but that will only work if the next department is close by. And what about if you drain the next place over and they catch a run? What is your solution?
Again the system of supplementing the department's interior people with exterior members work well in some places. I'm sure they would disagree that it's simply a shell game to fool the public.
You may call it lessening the requirements. Cool. I see it as adjusting your requirements for the reality of the situation. There will always be people who want to operate interior. Encourage them and train them to do so. But I guess i see tremendous value in the members who do not or can't operate interior, and to me, turning them away is simply foolishness. train them to do waht they can, and yes, develop a program to certify them.
As far as recruiting, I am going to be honest here. There simply isn't the tradition of volunteer firefighting in LA as there is up north, and I can't give you a reason for that, but that is the case. The tradition of being a family being members for generations, while it does occur, does not exist on a widespread basis as it does up north. And yes, in many cases the VFDs are smaller and do have problems attracting members because of that. You may want to call that an excuse, but having time to be outside and be on the water is very important to folks down here, and I am sure the time commitment required to be a volunteer firefighter v. outdoors time does have an impact on rural departments ability to recruit. So be it, but part of the reason is that folks here seem to put a priority on being on the water and out in the woods, not responding to fires and hanging out in the fire station, so, IMO, you will never get the same number of volunteers here compared to up north for a given population size. The culture of a VFD and the attraction here is simply not as strong when compared to many northern areas, as well as a very different way of life.
However, this issue is certainly not restricted to LA, and we both know that. The same problems existed on departments in NY and VT where I volunteered for over 20 years, and exist in other southern states today as well based on my conversations with FFs at regional and out of state training, and in many cases, exterior personnel was one way that they dealt/deal with it.
We will likely always disagree on this. Cool.
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Bobby,
Wisconsin is a mecca for outdoor activities and many volunteer firefighters partake in those activities. We have the winter activities of hunting, skiing, snow mobiling, ice fishing, hockey, and just being out in the snow. We have warm weather axtivities like hunting, fishing, boating, water skiing, riding atv's and motorcycles, swimming, just being outdoors in the woods. So we battle against that distraction too. Wisconsinites are as passionate about their free time as anyone I have ever met.
Perhaps you are right, it is a cultural thing and we are more civic, community minded, than some other parts of the nation.
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I don't know if civic minded is necessarily the right term, but there certainly isn't the culture down here that drives folks to the volunteer fire department like it is up north, and there certainly are not the traditions in the fire service down here that there are in the fire service up north.
Believe it or not, we would likely agree on the need for strict training requirements. My previous VFD up north required 75% training attendance for non-interior personnel, 80% for interior personnel and 85% for officers, plus 24 hours of out-of-department training per year, and I fully supported that.
We also required a roughly 50-hour rookie class with a written and hands-on test for all personnel, in addition to attending weekly training, before they could respond on calls.
So I have n issue with high training standards. And I would have no issue with increasing training standards on both of my departments. In fact on one of them, it's a common discussion with other members.
My issue is the fact that some folks feel that all personnel need to be interior qualified to function on the fireground. To me, that is not an essential part of being a firefighter as there are a boatload of exterior jobs, including direct exterior attack, that need to be performed for the fire operations to go well, and someone that can handle those functions is just as valuable as an interior member.
That's our issue.
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We pretty much agree until you get to this line:
" To me, that is not an essential part of being a firefighter as there are a boatload of exterior jobs, including direct exterior attack, that need to be performed for the fire operations to go well, and someone that can handle those functions is just as valuable as an interior member."
It is just ludicrous to say someone that can't or won't go interior is as valuable as an interior firefighter. They may do important and essential exterior tasks, but the simple fact is if they don't go interior they are clearly not as valuable. The rescuing of victims occurs INTERIOR, the extinguishment of room and contents fires occurs INTERIOR, salvage and overhaul occurs INTERIOR, and fire cause determination occurs INTERIOR. So how does all that occur if you have only exterior firefighters available?
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Permalink Reply by Derek R. on
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(psst..Jack...it's 2012..:))
Just wanted to make a comment on one issue you mentioned, which was about the government providing tax breaks to businesses for allowing FF employees to respond.
Where I am, we, as volunteers, receive both a provincial and federal tax credit as both a "hey, thanks" and a nice shiny object with hopes of attracting new volunteers.( with that, you still get the members that show up just enough to get their percentage to get the credits) And while businesses receive nothing of the sort, most still do allow employees to leave for calls. However, that allowance is limited in the majority of those businesses. And, yes, it would be great to see some of those tax credits go to the employers, but wouldn't that just mean more people could respond? I suppose it would free up more "interior" FF's.
Great post, by the way Jack.
That being said, there will still be the problem of certain volly FF's not wanting (for whatever reason) to go inside. Additionally, the one's that DO go interior, not all mind you, still don't have the want to do anything. Then you have the ones who just don't give a shit. And those are the ones we read about in the paper. But hell, that's a whole different topic.
Even if the segregated certs were to become the new thing, the smaller volly dept's can not "afford" to make those certs mandatory. After all.."it IS volunteering", and in a smaller dept., we need all we can get. I can't believe the number of people who said to me, to my face, that "it's volunteer, they can't MAKE me do anything".
In the volly world, you really don't know who will be able to respond, and when they will get there. So, really, what's the sense in attaining a cert in, let's say ventillation, or ladder throwing, what good are they if you don't have an interior crew? Or vice versa, you have your interior FF-max.-certified, but no one certed for ladders or vent or pump. You're just going to end up with what you have now.
Do I have the fix or the suggestion for this, no. I just know that breaking down the structure of a firefighter is not the answer. In a perfect world, we should all be at least ff1 trained. And if you still can't go interior, you still have the fundamentals of performing other roles on the fireground as needed.
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