How often do you do drills?

[enginegirl1]

For all-volunteer houses, how often are you doing drills and who decides what to drill on? Drills like hydrant hookup, cutting ventilation holes, search & rescue, etc. Thanks in advance.

[nadeau526]

We have a training division that has a Chief that over sees the division. A Capt that usually runs the drills then 2 LT's that help out. Also each Company has a Training officer incharge of company trainings. We have 2 drills a month. Usually the 2nd monday of the month is company training run by the company training officer. Then the last sunday or monday is our department wide training that is run by the training division Capt.

[clipse]

I believe we have one twice a month. I'm still not sure. I know we have meetings twice a month but I haven't been to one yet. Thursday will be my first.

[doublej986]

Our training nights are every Thursday. 1 EMS and 2 Fire each month. Then some Sat. classes.

[Bones42]

1 company drill per month. 1 engineers drill per month to check engines/fuel/tools/etc. 1 engineers drill per month for pumping. 1 FAST drill per month. That is scheduled, others may be thrown in for certain situations and/or where buildings become available for drilling.

Captain's are in charge of drills. Training division assists.

[scvfd412]

My department meets every Thursday night. The first Thursday of each month is business meeting and the rest are for training. We elect a training officer every year when we elect officers.

[Nordy1]

We have a fire training once a month and a ems training once a month. Sometimes we will throw some more in between. We have a training officer that comes up with ideas. The Chief oversees the training and gives his input and makes the main decisions.

[jerry4184]

3 Fire drills a month, with the meeting the third monday. All drills are monday nights, and usually department wide. Occasionally we'll split up, and send the engines out on their own, and the truck will then do it's own thing.

Extra drilling however is encouraged, and most of our officers are happy to clear a saturday afternoon, or evening sometime to go work with enough people that want to learn, that it's usually not a problem. Plus it helps the brass see who actually wants to be there versus who is there who knows what reasons.

[Eng34FF]

We have drills every Thursday except for the 2nd Thursday of the Month which is a business meeting. The training officer puts together a schedule and the line officers lead the drill. Topics range from EMS to auto extrication to layout and pumping drills. We schedule the drills according to things we see on the fireground or accident scene that need work. It may be the basics or more advanced techniques.

[enginegirl1]

thanks

Thanks for all the helpful replies. Our firehouse has a lot of very experienced people and I am only three months in the fire service. We have a monthly meeting / apparatus & equipment check, and I think we do a burn drill maybe twice a year when we get an abandoned house in the township. I would like to drill more and I probably need it much more than the others do. I don't want to tick everybody off, being new, so I will approach the subject with one of the experienced folks and maybe they can bring it up at the monthly meeting.

Be Safe,
Amy

[firefighterbeau]

The dept I mainly volunteer for right now has drill twice a month. The training officer along with the other officers decide what to do at each drill. There is a monthly officers meeting.

[gatoremt]

My Volunteer dept has 2 training meetings a month. We usually train for 2 hours a meeting. I have been on other departments that we only trained 1 time a month.

[WaterbryVTfire]

2 drill nights a month. With many other days/weekends available. Last year our department did 8400 man hours of training.

[doughesson]

My old department meets on the first and third Mondays of each month for dinner and 3 hours of training.We alternate stations and before we rush the chow line,an officer finds out who brought their gear("You rode the truck over here but didn't bring your turnouts?No soup for you!Traffic detail!")and assigns people to whichever job should we get tapped out during the meeting.
We've had calls during training where we had to break off the hydrant before going and visitors though that we ran so smoothly,they took the idea back to their departments and it's starting to spread,if it hadn't been thought of before.
Plus,every call can afford some training time.Two years ago,I learned on the fly how to use a BVM and properly set up an O2 tank,which got me signed off quicker in EMT school when I showed some of my classmates how to do it.The instructor signed them off as well when they showed him what I'd done.

[ndvfdff33]

We do training once a week on Tuesday nights. The person who decides what we do is our Dept Training Officer, one of the Capt's, and is helped out by any of the other officers that are present