While sitting at home feeling sorry for myself about not being at FDIC with all of the other 30,000 brothers and sisters there; A good friend reminded me it is not what they are doing at FDIC, but what are you doing at home to keep yourself sharp.
So I ask you the same. Not attending FDIC? What will you do this week to ensure you are Combat Ready?
This year Firefighter Basics will not be in attendance at FDIC,but our Blog Brothers, and Sisters will. From the Brotherhood Instructors to The Fire Critic. Please stop by the Firefighternation, Fire Ems Blogs Booth while you are out in Indy and say hello. Also please Attend the Meet up that is scheduled for Friday Night at O’Reily’s Pub and Restaurant on Penn St from 8pm to 11pm and connect with your favorite bloggers and even have a cold one or ten and tale some tales.
I hope everyone enjoys there time at FDIC and remembers that learning and acquiring knowledge mean nothing if you refuse to share it with your Brothers and Sisters. Most of the crew will be sitting home watching the coverage or teaching. God Bless enjoy and maybe we will see ya in Baltimore.
Also please check FDIC website for some great classroom presentations by Jason Hoevelmann, Nick Morgan, Rhett Fleitz just to name a few. Get to these classrooms early they will fill up quick. Just great hard working firefighters like you and I who are trying to share some knowledge.
We hope everyone has a great time and we look forward to hearing the stories
While having a conversation at one of the fire services most infamous training rooms the firehouse kitchen, a discussion was started on apparatus response. Now I personally take what I call the Ricky Bobby approach ” If you ain’t first your last ” , but after the conversation I started to examine my thoughts. If everyone is trying to be first are they really focusing on the task that will need to be performed? Is it essential to always be first or should you learn to embrace the other roles that need to be played on the fire ground? My point being is, if your always first or racing to be first how many times have you blown the second due assignment when you weren’t first? Are firefighters getting the benefit of learning the role the second line plays on the fire ground, or the benefit of truly learning what the RIT company is suppose to do? If you are the officer are you really helping or hurting your company? Are firefighters now trying to operate at a pace that they do not have the experience for? The reality is we are not doing ourselves any favors in rushing to the scene, in my opinion. Does that mean I don’t want to arrive first? NO, but it means are we getting there and performing the task we need to perform and performing them correctly? Just some thoughts to ponder.
I’ve been spending some time training the probie lately. What a good time. Where does that motivation go? What should I teach him? At what point does my “teaching” become “storytelling”? How long before he becomes the next whining lump on the couch?
My goal: Prevent him from becoming a couch creature, ever.
Here’s what I’m telling him;
10. These guys are not going to be around when you are 80 years old sitting in a rest home. Hopefully your family will. Be Safe, always remember your family when you are at work.
11. Wear your equipment. Let the “salty dogs” get caught with their pants down, they will have some excuse that makes it someone else’s fault that they weren’t ready, you have none.
12. Always have promotion in the back of your mind. Find an officer to emulate. Study, study, study there is a lot to this job and plenty of nationwide opportunities for knowledgeable and motivated personnel.
I’m not a mean guy and there are exceptions to everything, but I think if he follows this general outline he’ll be just fine. Even if he does make some mistakes I think he’ll be better off then the probie on another group who asked the officer to move his car out of the firehouse so the probie could wash his own car.
Good luck all you new guys. This is the greatest job.
Be Safe.
All to often I hear of firefighters today wanting to be babysat when it comes to doing their job. Some, but not all, want you to tell them to drill ; When to drill and how to drill. My question is when the decision is made to be, or not to be, a professional, who’s job is it to take corrective action?
Does it always have to be formal corrective action or can the Senior Firefighters within our companies handle it?
I’ve been spending some time training the probie lately. What a good time. Where does that motivation go? What should I teach him? At what point does my “teaching” become “storytelling”? How long before he becomes the next whining lump on the couch?
My goal: Prevent him from becoming a couch creature, ever.
Here’s what I’m telling him;
I’m not a mean guy and there are exceptions to everything, but I think if he follows this general outline he’ll be just fine. Even if he does make some mistakes I think he’ll be better off then the probie on another group who asked the officer to move his car out of the firehouse so the probie could wash his own car.
Good luck all you new guys. This is the greatest job.
Be Safe.
After learning last night that a good friend and contributing Jeff Schwering was not doing well. I thought I would ask everyone to pray for our Brother firefighter and his family. Jeff broke his leg Jan 19 and subsequently since then has had two brain bleeds. Please Keep Jeff and his family in your prayers. If you would like to leave words of encouragement we will get them to his wife so she can read them too him. We will try and keep everyone updated.
Article after article is written by many in regards to placing the first line into operation. Since this is one of the most basic fundamentals of being a firefighter, why do we have so much trouble in placing the first line into operation correctly? Is it, because we are moths drawn to a flame? Is it not being able to think on your feet? Is it tunnel vision? Or is it ignorance? We as fire service professionals have to get past the “yanking” it off the truck mentality. Take time when you get to the engine. It doesn’t matter if you call them preconnects, speed-lays or cross-lays. It doesn’t matter what load is carried. One thing that all fire hose loads have in common is they will all become a big pile of spaghetti and have multiple kinks in the line if not deployed correctly.
One simple maneuver will help the deployment and actually speed the process and prevent frustration. Pull the line away from the point of entry (Where you are going to go in and attack the fire). Clear the hose bed, put tension on the line. NOW proceed towards the door. Nothing to in depth here. You may be wondering, well we don’t have a building to train in. Go to the local park. Pick an object that would be the “front” door and deploy your handline. This will give you practice on obstacles and having to size up your deployment. Use the parking lot of the station, use a traffic cone as your point of entry and go in between the parked vehicles. Go to a new house being built and talk with the crews. Explain what you want to do and see if they will let you deploy your handlines. Let them know it is all outside work. Obstacles are good practice, because we never ever encounter obstacles on the fireground. Empty parking lots never allow us the chance to practice around obstacles. If you have a burn building or training tower then great. Practice outside/inside hose advances. If you don’t have either of those. Then use the apparatus bays. You see where I am going with this. These aren’t three hour drills. These are quick drills that 4 or 5 people can accomplish in an hour to an hour and a half with everyone getting their chance to pull line. Even the officer and engineer needs to have a little hands on time.
Why, you ask? Keep in mind that “Murphy’s Law” will come into play somewhere during the working fire. Remember that selecting the appropriate sized hose line is important. Putting the line into operation without a hitch is even more important.
The latest crop of future leaders emerged from the physically and mentally demanding fire academy 1 week ago. First off; Congratulations, and great job. Welcome to the best job on Earth.
Now that we got past that “LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING KID…“:
1.Forget EVERYTHING you learned in the academy. Those book smart idiots don’t know shit about how real firefighters work.
2. Top priority everyday is to make sure the coffee is made. Get your equipment ready after that.
3. Learning your streets is your second priority after the coffee. I know you aren’t allowed behind the wheel for a year but you need to know all the streets right now. Where’s Action Court? Ha, Wrong! It’s a street off Action Road that doesn’t have any buildings on it, actually it’s just a named driveway, learn your streets kid.
4. Never leave the truck without a tool. if it’s a minor car accident bring the pick head axe. The ambulance drivers can do the medical crap, that’s beneath us.
5. Always carry the pick head axe when investigating alarms. It looks cool as hell and you can hit things with it.
6.If you wear your tank while investigating an alarm you are a punk and/or scared.
7. Take that suspension and ear flap crap out of your helmet. You look stupid. As a matter of fact we could put in the oven for a couple of minutes and take that shine off.
8.In order to be a more streamlined and effective firefighter you have to control your weight. Dump the search rope, pliers, cable cutters. Take the liner out of your Bunker pants. You already have an integrated pass so get rid of that stand alone nonsense. Now let’s get some cake and watch Wheel of Fortune.
9.Those guys down the street on the west side are so caught up following the book that they forgot they are supposed to be aggressive firefighters. If you see them stop to catch a hydrant drive around them and we’ll run a line off the tank. We’ll be alright but if we run out they can fill us.
10. I’ve been on this job so long that I don’t need to check my equipment or the truck. Besides, the guy yesterday should have done it all.
11. I don’t care if you are a grown man who did 3 deployments to Afganistan as a combat medic. You don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m a better medic than you’ll every be.
12. “There I was at that 4 alarm fire……Just me….against the Red Devil…..”
This is advice I’ve heard people tell Probies. Most of these are direct quotes. The caliber of leadership can sometimes be astounding.
Stay Safe
Many things are being discussed in our service today. My take on things is a mix I suppose you could say between sides of the fence that the Fire Service has created. We have the “Safety Sallies” in the blue corner and the “Aggressives” in the red corner. I did the groups in specific corners for a reason, if you figure it out wonderful, if not, sorry. Many issues are in the front of our minds right now. Searching of insert name of building type here, proper size hose lines, ventilation, etc. We seem to split down party lines and to me this about the worst thing we could possibly do.
Here’s a novel idea, break down the fence and meet in the middle!Many outstanding and far more intellegent folks tha I, occupy both “camps,” so how about instead of “flinging poo” as Chief Goodrich has elluded to in his post and “Sir Lancelot etc” by Dave LeBlanc, both on this sight. If you haven’t read them, please do before you finish this. These two gentlemen, who, Dave I know personnally and Art I know through his writing and chatting with, represent the corners. These two guys don’t share the same beliefs on some of the issues, yet they are friends, and meet in the middle, in the battleground that has become of Safety vs Aggressiveness.
We all came on this job to be a fireman, to my knowledge no one forced you to get on that engine, truck, or rescue, if someone was forced to come on the job, stop reading now. Being a fireman, is a tough demanding and dangerous job, period! We’ve come a long way from hanging on the tailboard, trying to pull our boots up, to enclosed cabs, with Seatbelts! Wow, are we good are what? Spare me the butt slapping and back patting we all do, before the job is done. Our job is never going to be done, fires happen, fact and people die, if not for us! Real quick, if you don’t like being referred to as a fireman and would prefer Fighfighter, the touchy feely PC way, just pretend. We have some of the smartest folks in the world working in our profession. IAFF, NFPA, NIOSH, EGH, IAFC,etc, these folks are giving us tools to put in our paperwork toolbox everyday and as firemen and bosses, we need to use them to help keep our members safe. We have hands on training like Brotherhood of Instructors, Vulcan training groups and many other teaching the apparatus toolbox things to make us better firemen, everyday folks!
Novel idea time! Lets use the skills we honed in our apparatus tool box, get the saw, irons, hooks, axes, etc, to take apart this fence and instead having party lines, like the politicians we all agree we don’t like. Let’s look together and have civil disscussions and conversations on how to make both toolboxes work together, to better enhance the Fire Service. Leave the fingerpointing and second guessing outside of our circle. We truely as Firemen are better than that. Be mindful of the families of the lost or injured Brothers the next time you feel you need to point a finger at any Brother or Department, it could be you tomorrow.
We are in the greatest Profession in the world, the bond we have with each other has no borders, nor should our professionalism to our citizens, towns, districts, and our country! Be Safe, but all buildings get searched, we say when and if that building is unoccupied.
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:
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.
To Setup the Drill you will need an area where you can run multiple sections of hose and charge it.
Materials Needed
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.
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.
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?
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?
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
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.
While attending Church on Sunday, the Preacher said something particular familiar to me and it will be to you. It is a saying we all use for comfort and very much so as an excuse when we don’t want to do something right then or maybe even at all. It is associated with this time of season. Often times we find ourselves with short comings and we like to say ” I’m going to do better in the New Year” or ” That’s my New Year’s resolution “. Truth is when the New Year comes your still going to be the same person you were when you came into the New Year unless you start to act now. If you are the Company Officer that says my company is going to do more training in the New Year, start now chances are they really need it and you just have not grown a pair to make them do it. If your the Firefighter who says they will study harder in the New Year, Start now as much information as you can gather will help you be a better thinking firefighter. Which will help you almost immediately. We could attach lots of things to this post and you are all welcome too, but I think my point is clear. The person, firefighter you are right now will be the same person you are in the New Year unless you start your resolve now. Start doing now, do not wait on the New Year . The fact is whatever you might be holding off on for the New Year could be what you should have known for the next run, that could prevent you from seeing that New Year. Happy Holidays to you all God Bless and Please Stay Safe.
The Crew here at Firefighter Basics would like to take this time to wish everyone a very Happy Holiday Season. Not sure that everyone is aware that the Crew here is all active Firefighter’s, and Instructors. At times we can not always post as we would like. We are working very hard to bring you great content and deliver it in a way that you can immediately apply it to your next run. We will be re-doing our site and we are asking you what you would like to see. What are we getting right? The site is for firefighter’s by firefighter’s. Email us your ideas at firefighterbasics@gmail.com and if you would to contribute write something and submit and we will get back to you. Again Have a Happy Holiday Season.
From all of us at Firefighter Basics, we wish you all a very Happy and Healthy Thanksgiving! To our Brothers and Sisters that have the watch, while we eat our turkey, Stay safe, remember the basics! We hope you will have a quiet tour with your second families. Take care everyone, enjoy the day, because Firefighter Basics will be coming back at you with many new challenges in the upcoming days.
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