Firefighter Basics FDIC 2010 by Fire Student

Firefighter Basics crew arrived for FDIC on Sunday evening and got registered for the week of training. Fortunately for us, there was already a few brothers from the Charleston, S.C Fire Dept who were on the ground and invited us to dinner. We would like to thank Ed Henry Owner of Truck Company Concepts and Matt Thomson for inviting us to dinner. While heading to dinner and talking to AnchorPoint, whom we are going to get to FDIC 2011, Chief Ed Hadfield of Firetown Training Specialist dropped a note to say he was at the Webber Grill and to stop by and have a beer. We had a fantastic meal and a great talk. What a very smart man. We hope to get together in the future and do some training. We wrapped up the night to get ready for the start of H.O.T. classes.  Monday came around, the start of H.O.T classes, and we are standing in line for the Large Area Search Lead by Robert Athanas of Safe-IR, what a fantastic class, and I met up with Jason Hoevelman of A Firefighters Own Worst Enemy . There we teamed up with a brother from Indiana and a Chief Officer from Japan. I must say if you have never conducted Large Area Search and you have any buildings that have aisles which are greater than ten feet wide or big box structures and you believe you are just going to be able to search it with no training; you are fooling yourself! You are setting yourself up to hurt or even worse kill firefighters.  The instructors were great and very knowledgeable and need to be allotted more than four hours. I would definitely recommend this class to anyone going to FDIC. Sign up and find out what you have been missing.  As stated, this was a four hour class and ran up until the afternoon and then we headed off to the ABC’s of Airbags Lead instructor Paul Debartolomeo. Paulie, if you read this post I hope I got it right. Guys the class was great and the Instructors again, top shelf.  I will definitely be signing up again to see what they have in store for next year. Scott Feather ( Training 38) took the Truck Company Search Procedures and Firefighter safety and survival offered by the IAFF. He gave it Five stars. Scott also took Thermal Imaging Techniques and the ABC’s of Air Bag’s.  Later on that night we met our friends from the Charleston Fire and some new friends whom were firefighters on Camp Lejune Marine Corp Base for some dinner at Bucca Di Beppa and later over to the Cladduagh. At the Cladduagh the place was packed. We again talked with Jason Hoevelman, Jeff Shupe, Jim Crawford, Ray McCormack and the list goes on. I’m sure you get the picture. Tuesday was a leadership workshop by Chief Bob Burns and Captain Al Hagan of the FDNY on First Line Leadership. Again, another common sense class with tons to offer and not enough time.  During the rest of the week I got to take classes for Company Officers, Truck Company Operations, and an Awesome class by Chris Naum of Buildingsonfire.com coming to you soon. We learned a lot and got to play some as well, Thursday was the Kicker as we shared a few pints with the Brotherhood Instructros, PL Vulcan Fire Training, On Scene Training Associates, and Urban Firefighter Magazine. All and all it was a great time with some amazing and gifted firefighters.  Saturday I did some shopping where I was able to pick up the new Fire Notes on Fire Ground Search from FDTN. We will be back out at FDIC 2011 March 21-26 and hope to see you there.

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