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Single Person Evolutions by Training38

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What do you think of when you take an Engine Company class? You think of a three or four person crew arriving on the first due apparatus. A lot of departments in South Carolina do not respond with 3 or 4 people on the first arriving apparatus. They arrive with one person and have additional personnel arrive at different intervals, in apparatus, staff vehicles or POV. The latest study shows how effective an engine company can be with 4 and 5 personnel riding on the rig. The study accomplished 22 different tasks. When you have one or two people arriving on scene, the study showed accomplishing those same 22 tasks, increases the work load and the overall time to complete those tasks. One question I have is most departments are fully aware of the increased work load with the initial one or two persons arriving. Does your department practice one person engine drills? Do you honestly train like you fight? What do you expect to accomplish in 3-6 minutes by yourself. Not much you are probably thinking. What if I told you that one person can in less than six minutes complete the following:

  • Arrival on scene with a windshield radio size-up (Time starts when the cab door opens)
  • Pump engagement
  • Donning your structural pants
  • Deploying your 200ft pre-connect
  • Charging your line
  • Donning the rest of your gear, including your SCBA
  • Deploying the PPV close to the front door
  • Donning your mask
  • Conducting an educated exterior attack (Time stops when the handline is flowing water)

Would you believe that this can be accomplished in 3:30 seconds? Right know you are probably saying that can’t happen and are probably asking yourself what about the walk around. In less than 5 minutes with a walk around all of this can be accomplished. It all falls back to technique and having a procedure so you maximize your movements while also being dressed for success. I am not by any means advocating conducting an interior attack alone. STAY OUT until adequate resources is on scene prior to the interior attack! For those firefighters that understand, how the first person arriving can have a dramatic impact on the initial stages of the fire and how multiple people are arriving with in the first five minutes and inundate the scene. This really hits home. For those that run a traditional style engine company you’ll appreciate the techniques of those in a rural environment. In a rural setting a lot of times the person who gets the engine to the scene may or may not be the one who operates the fire pump. With being fully dressed out you can make a safer exterior attack. You may be lucky enough to extinguish the fire or you may keep the fire at bay until additional help arrives. Either way your PPE is in place and provides you with the most protection. Once additional personnel arrive, firefighters fall into place, pump operators, Incident command, Additional attack line, RIT teams, Search crews and the list goes on and on and on. Next time you have a drill night, try this single person evolution and see what you can accomplish. You will be surprised. Understand that this is worst case scenario for a department, most of the time multiple firefighters and tankers are arriving with the engine or within minutes behind the engine. This drill is nothing fancy, no fancy tactics or techniques. Just sticking to the basics and maximizing your movements.

Posted in Drills, training-development

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January 28, 2011 • 6 comments

Disorientation Drill

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To Setup the Drill you will need an area where you can run multiple sections of hose and charge it.

Materials Needed

  1. 300 feet of 1.5 or 1.75 fire hose
  2. Two nozzles
  3. Two instructors

When locating a coupling to gain orientation and get out of the structure. One saying that is used is ” Smooth Bump Bump and to the Pump” Referring to running your hand from the smooth shank portion of the female coupling to the lugs and then the lugs on the male coupling.

Firefighters should be in full PPE including SCBA and vision blocked.

Posted in Drills, training-development

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January 12, 2011 • 6 comments

Inmates running the Asylum.

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We have a “tradition”  based firehouse in my city.   It is in a busy area with lots of good work to be done.  Keeping it “traditional” requires the chain of command to continually assign new recruits (relatives) to this house.  So as time has gone on it has developed an “us versus the rest of the department” attitude.  A high percent of the firefighters have a small amount of time on the job.   The firefighters actively run officers out of the house if they feel the officer is not adequately qualified (related).

So….This is my question to the 3000ish people that read this.

If you as an officer get assigned to this house how do you handle the following:

1. The firefighters in the house.

2. The chain of command that will be overly involved in your day to day business.

3. The overall atmosphere involved.

My answer:

Classic start tight and then go light theory.

We will follow “the book”  word for word as much as possible.  Document every stupid little infraction.  I believe doing this will help keep the in-laws at bay and also have a written history of my and the firefighters actions incase this becomes a bigger issue, which it may.

I would like to go out training as much as possible within the constrains of the written rules.   The high frequency of training, pre-fire planning, district familiarization will hopefully keep them focused on the real reason they are at this firehouse 2X’s a week.

We would check the apparatus and do firehouse maintenance as a crew, all members involved, no excuses.

If this plan does not work I’m sure I’ll hear about it.  If  it does work on the other hand then we can lower the frequency of the additional training.

It sounds a bit romantic and overly simple.  Let me know your thoughts.

Posted in administration-leadership, Thoughts

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January 11, 2011 • 7 comments

What is Brotherhood/Sisterhood

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This title has sat in my draft box for sometime and for good reason. I thought of this title one day while becoming very angry at another Brother. Quite often firefighter’s use the term Brother, but do not really understand the meaning behind what they are saying. It is just the common thing to say and an easy way to fit in. I want you to think about the word Family and then think about what it means to you and how you feel about your family. Now I know everyone did not grow up in a perfect utopia living like the Brady’s or the Huxtables, but for the most part I think the meaning is understood. Often times growing up if you had siblings you probably wanted to kill them, but the flip side of the coin is you would absolutely kill for them. So I pose my first question? Why is it that we allow envy to creep in our departments or firehouses and run rampant? What happen to facing each other if you had a discrepancy and working it out. Often times now it seems firefighters now conspire with others to gang up on one firefighter. Brotherhood/Sisterhood use to mean looking out for each other at all cost and it was an US against the world not each other. When did it become appropriate to criticize a fellow firefighter ever, or even worse, before offering them help with their issue? One of the greatest Traditions the Fire Service has to offer is the lessons of the past, that are now seemingly not getting passed on because the wrong folks are getting put in place, and yet we allow for this to happen time after time by not putting that person in there place or when they first come helping them understand what they have become apart of. In thinking of Brother/Sisterhood, it means no matter what you will be there for each other unconditionally. If I have something you need, it should never be to good for you not to use it. If you just need someone to talk to I should be offering that listening ear. If you are a little short on cash to make the mortgage and I got it, it should be yours no questions asked. With no favors expected in return. Most of all give the gift of  knowledge, share what you know. Now I ask you what does Brother/Sisterhood mean to you?

Posted in administration-leadership, Thoughts

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January 10, 2011 • 2 comments

Equipment Familiarization Drill

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Quite often we take for granted that when we receive intital training on a piece of equipment that it is the gospel, especially if it comes from manufacture. The sad part is the training you receive is just barely enough to get you in trouble.  So this drill is to challenge you to truly get familiar with your equipment. I’m going to ask a few questions.

1. Have you read the manuals that come along with the equipment?  Most times the answer is no, they were ripped off and thrown in the trash we are firefighters we saw the demo on the equipment we know how to work it.

2. Do you even know if you still have the operators manuals?

3. Now that you read the manuals what did you learn?

4. After learning that you were doing a lot of things shouldn’t have are you sharing it with members in the dept?

5. Will you take this approach from now on.

We truly need to learn our equipment in and out. Push it to its limits during training so you know what kind of performance can be expected on the fire ground.  For firefighters that read this post think back to when a piece of equipment didn’t work right or failed. When you went looking for answers what did you find?

Posted in Thoughts, training-development

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January 6, 2011 • No comments

Remember the Horses

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When it’s my week to be the operator, I have my own routine. Just like everybody else has their own. I wash the truck and scrub the hard to reach areas that others don’t do. Then I check the oil, the medical equipment and the rest of the equipment in the cab, then I pull it out front and run the pump. By this time the truck is mostly dry and I get a towel and spend the next 30min or so polishing all the chrome and stainless steel.

Well, during the polish time today a junior firefighter comes up and tells me “you don’t have to put so much effort into washing the piece”. What? Did he seriously say that?

Do you remember the horses? Strong, dedicated, fearless and outdated. Horses had a shaky start in the fire service, just like every new technology does, but they took over and dominated for 60 or so years. There are stories of horses dying in the harness. Horses that were sold that still race towards fire alarms. Horses that would find the fire and the hydrants for the firefighters. Great animals. But it came time for them to go. Guess why? Financial reasons. Don’t think you are exempt from that reason, you are currently allowed to be at the firehouse because your city has not YET cut the staffing to you. You are allowed to be here because the current technology that your city has decided to afford requires the current staffing level. So, yes I do have to put so much effort into maintaining the truck because I am grateful to have this job.

Here are a few other reasons I put so much effort into making the truck look good.

1. The neighborhood\d LOVES to see us out in front of the firehouse washing the truck. Far more people stop and look. Far more people bring their kids to look, and more people ask questions about what we do. Hmmm, customer service? Community relations? You pick the category.

2. Cities will cut staffing as they see fit. Not too many of us have to look very far to see evidence of that, right Lawrence Massachusetts, Wilmington Delaware Rescue 1?. If the neighborhood loves you they will fight for you, you can ask Boston Engine 50 about that. So making friends in the neighborhood is a good thing.

3. New sprinkler heads (not so new now) that turn off by themselves have the potential to make the down and dirty job of firefighting all but obsolete. Much like what happened to the horses. Sprinkler heads like Grinnell’s F920C and others may still be working the kinks out, but when they get these things figured out they will change our job. Also sprinklers may eventually be required in ALL properties. Real estate developers are currently fighting sprinkler installation in new construction, but even if they succeed in postponing it, it’s still only a matter of time. By the time a new firefighter today gets near retirement age the job will be far less dangerous, have far fewer members and have a higher scope of practice than it currently does. It will be a different job.

I polish the truck for me, my crew and for every member of my community.

I polish it for the horses.

Stay Safe

Posted in Education/Training, Thoughts

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January 6, 2011 • 4 comments

Pledge to the Basics for the New Year

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I have seen some great post so far about the 2011 firefighter. All great suggestions and I felt like I would contribute to it in my own words. Firefighters in 2011 really need to commit to getting back to the basics. Almost anytime you inquire about a firefighter injury or a firefighter death it was because the basics in some way were not followed. I’m now seeing engine firefighters who are carrying so many tools they can’t commit to the stretch or even worse can’t estimate it. Firefighters claiming to be truckies, but can’t carry and extension ladder by themselves and forget raising it alone. It can’t be said enough that solid engine and truck work are the foundation for a successful fire ground. Firefighters should also start in 2011 to really focus on how modern day practices of building construction are really affecting us. Brothers like Chief Chris Naum, Chief Cline, Chief Dunn, and many others whom if I try to list by name, will run out of room on this post have dedicated there lives to researching and putting out information on how buildings are built and how they behave when involved by fire. It appears by the line of duty deaths and the lack of training during the initial phases of basics fire training. My hope is that the 2011 firefighter will shed the ghost of Bad Tradition, and embrace what is good, and make some good Traditions of there own. It is now time for us to start being the professionals that we are no matter paid, or volunteer; be accountable for our actions and hold each other accountable for our actions and recognize no matter where you are, you are still a firefighter. So for 2011 I hope all firefighters will pledge to become better at our profession and honor those who have gone before us.

Posted in Thoughts

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January 3, 2011 • 2 comments