Rookie School

[kgain25]

Hey I just got hired at a local dept, and start rookie school on Jan 14. I was just curious as to what was the normal PT for you guys that have been through it?

Thanks!

[CaptBob]

Henry County?

Just because you passed the physical agility doesn’t mean you are ready for the fire academy or you will be a good firefighter. Whether you agree or not, the physical agility has been watered down to be politically correct. Departments know this. So, the training division is going to put you through the wringer to make sure you can do the job before you go on line. If you can’t keep up they will wash you out. You have to maintain good physical conditioning during your probation and through out your career. It can be hard getting this job. It can become difficult keeping it!

Showing up at the academy is not the time to start getting ready. You need to be in shape and hit the ground running. It’s tough enough getting a job. Keeping it can be a challenge. If you are let go by one department, it is going to be difficult if not impossible to get another department to take a chance on you.

This from Mark: Just to add onto captain Bob's input....one of my classroom instructors (who also happens to be one of the PT instructors for the part-time academy) is such a physical fitness guru that she continues on every week with stories of how she has to "write up" recruits because of poor aerobic/anaerobic performance early in the academy (mind you these recruits did well on the Biddle). At this point I already get the point that if I'm going to fail physically, the time is now rather than in the academy. But what really got me down was when she mentioned that she knew a bunch of firefighters who had to be let go by a department after working a few years because they were no longer "aerobically fit" for the job. Where do they go now? What do they do? Just like captain Bob quoted, "You have to maintain good physical conditioning during your probation and through out your career. It can be hard getting this job. It can become difficult keeping it!"

Here are some of the incidents where candidates were let go:

A candidate shows up at an academy not in shape even though he knows they will run 3 miles a day, he can’t. Result. They run him into the ground the first week.

Another recruit knew he had to lose weight for the academy. He did not reach his goal. His weight caught up with him trying to hump hose up the tower with a SCBA. Result: Got his marching orders because he didn’t have the wind to complete this tough academy. Good news again. Regrouped, lost the weight, got in shape and convinced a department with an easier academy he would be an asset.

"More suicides have been committed by a knife and a fork than any other weapon"

[kgain25]

Yeah Henry County

[kgain25]

Bump...what PT did you guys do?

[jerry4184]

The PT isn't going to be the most important part. You'll run, do pushups, situps, pullups, and all that. pretty standard. After your PT though, you'll also be doing hoseline advancement evolutions, rescue scenarios, laddering buildings, vent work, search work, and everything else actually fighting a fire entails. There is going to be a lot of work involved in those tasks as well. That's why it's key to be in great shape before the academy, because if you can't hack the PT, you certainly won't be doing well on your evolutions just a little while later that day.