Practicing Basic Skills is Key

When your department is short staffed and your Training Division is short staffed it makes it difficult to conduct quality training in the basics. That is why it is imperative that at the company officer level training in the basics continues. Although plentiful overtime is good in the short term in the long term it can lead to fatigue and lack of consistent training sessions. One of the things that the Training Division must balance is the amount of work hours firefighters are putting in and the ability to conduct effective training. In a short staffed environment fatigue can play a role in causing injuries during training and thus creating another vacancy on the line. A short term overtime spurt from one to six months may not be significant but when the overtime is occurring over a prolonged period of time (one year or more) it can lead to fatigue both physically and mentally.