Where firefighters come to talk training
Need for some training advice.
Hello to all, I have been recentley asked to start handling my department training. Of course it is like every department you have some that feel the need to train and some that don't. I am looking to make training something that everyone is fired up and wanting to do. I have recieved a fair amount of training from a department out of my county and from the Ga. Fire Academy and I feel like I try to be a sponge and absorb eveything that I can. I am looking at putting together a 3 or 4 man training committee to come up with us a quarterly schedule and I was wandering what everyone thought and if I could get some ideas on different types of training that your departments do. We are a combination department made up of 4 paid firefighters and 15 volunteers. We run on average about 600 calls a year. Any help to try and make a difference would be greatly appreciated. Our biggest issues are of course training, getting people to wear their turnout gear all the time, and the ICS System.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Brent Sanger on -
Robbie, a good starting point would be the Core Competencies as put out by Standards and Training. The paid guys have to have them, and it won't hurt the volunteers as well to go through them. There is a book out, not sure of the title off the top of my head, that gives a complete drill with lesson plan and additional information, for each week of the year. That's another good starting point. What you should do is observe a couple training evolutions, talk to the senior officers about what they have observed on different scenes, then make a training plan from there. ISO requires 240 hours per year individual training per firefighter, as well as 8 Single Company, 4 Multi Company, and 2 Night time drills. Plus they also have driver's, hazmat, and officer training requirements. Plan your training with those requirements in mind. Training is where most departments lose the most points when it comes to ISO. And it's the easiest place to earn points. Hope this helps. Any questions feel free to contact me.
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Permalink Reply by Dan Rice on -
Robbie,
My department has also had the same problems you do when it comes to motivation and the good old “ I’ve been fighting fire sense before you were born mentality” that some members feel gives them the right not to train. We had a big issue with getting out guys to wear turnouts on MVC’s. We had to amend our sog’s (that hadn’t been updated for years) so we would have grounds to enforce the PPE on emergency incidents. When a firefighter has to sit in the engine throughout the incident because he didn’t have is PPE on that tends to change the tune of things some. Anyhow, back to training. We randomly pick out key structures in our area and will have a tabletop rundown with our members to get a grasp on how they feel it should be handled and what decisions they would make. As simple as it sounds it can make a big difference. AS much rambling that has gone on I hope I could help. Good luck, keep us posted on how things are going!
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Permalink Reply by Shawn Tibbitts on -
I have found when im in a pinch trying to come up with some drill ideas I check out the drill section at firefighterclosecalls.com this has been a big help.
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