Fire Training for Law Enforcement Officers

[LT JOHN F WALSH]

I am conducting research for my NFA-EFOP
course. Looking for any US fire agencies / academies that train police officers to operate safely @ fire / mva/ ems incidents.
If you know of any agency that conducts this type of FD/PD training (or related training)
could you please reply?

thank you
Lt John F. Walsh
Valley Falls Fire District
Cumberland, RI
401-725-6646 (h)

[GeorgeWendtCFI]

John, this is a helluva topic to undertake! Our academy attempted to start just such a program about five years ago. We had PD's who would place SCBA's in patrol cars and expect their guys to wear them with no PPE. When the academy tried to get this going, the state said, no. There was too much mandated training and no place to put another block of instruction.

[FireCapt1951retired]

Lt,

Are you talking about the public safety concept where police officers are cross trained as certified firefighters? If so you can contact one of the oldest departments in the country. Oak Park, Mi has been a Public Safety Department for over 40 years. All members are certified as Police Officer/Firefighter, you can contact them at 248-691-7520. However it is a poor system where firefighting takes a back seat to police work. Their motto is, we never lose a foundation.

[hctrouble25]

In NJ the State Police and Highway/Road Department for the State are putting together a system that will teach police and fire officials to work together at scenes on major highways, etc. They teach us how to park vehicles, what to watch for, how to direct traffic, etc. I am not sure if this is what you mean or not. Also, I know the State Police carry oxygen and fire extinguishers in their cars and they are trained to use both by the state. Other than that I think the Police should do their job at the scene and we should do ours.

[lumpy649]

I agree with HCT... why give someone such as a police officer an scba and no gear, no water, and no partner? No offense, and a little off-topic, but it sounds like a good way for someone attempting to do good a way to get into trouble. Almost like giving someone enough rope to hang themselves. I could see it working a little better if the officer has extensive training in firefighting and fire behavior, and can be sure that a partner can arrive to help him work more safely.

On the other hand, should firefighters be allowed to carry a weapon while on duty? In this day and age, you can never be quite sure of what type of situation you are really going into.

But to stick to the topic of the original post, a class like this can certainly benefit police officers by helping them learn how and why we operate the way we do, and how they can assist us in keeping things safe on scenes. Unfortunately, I am not aware of any. I wish you luck in finding what you need.

[ 07-12-2001: Message edited by: lumpy649 ]

[DeputyChiefGonzo]

It would be great if they could learn about fireground and accident scene safety while at the Police Academy, so they know what it's like for firefighters to operate at an incident. We can teach them the importance of proper apparatus placement, recognizing potential backdraft and flashover situations so they can warn us if they are first to arrive, etc.

Extinguisher training would be great to teach police officers what their limitations are with the Class ABC dry chem fire extinguishers they have in their cars.

Hazmat recognition and identification would be a plus (beleive me, they have heard enough of the "blue canary" jokes).

We can also learn a lot from our brothers and sisters in law enforcement...things like scene safety in violent or hostage situations, preservation of evidence, accident reconstruction (great to tie into mechanism of injury at mva's), etc.

Before some of you get "hot under the collar", in no way am I advocating complete cross training in the the disciplines of fire fighting and law enforcement. I believe that they should be separate functions. We do have to work together at incidents, we can just make it a little easier.

[ffguy083]

There have been several attempts to work with the local Police Agencies, but it seems as soon as inroads are made the upper Echiolon (forgive my spelling) changes, and the inroads disappear.

There is much we can learn from the Police (as Capt Gonzo has noted we might teach them). Crime Scene v. Viable Patient, what we should/should not do when working on a Patient, how we can work with the State Police in particular to keep the interstate system running as well as we can, Identifying who is in charge of particular incidents, and how we can all work under ICS.

So, yes we have seen some of these trngs, unfortunately not enough

[FFMcDonald]

I wholeheartedly agree with Captain Gonzo on this one...

It would be kind of like Haz Mat Awareness -- except it would be-- Fire Service awareness.

Many a time I have heard of structures being lost- or more damage caused at a fire because of a police officer breaking out windows with his baton. We had to explain the principle of coordinated attack, and vent-enter-search to them...

I think that it would be a great idea.... and we could finally get them to stop parking where apparatus need to be.

[ 07-13-2001: Message edited by: FF McDonald ]

[hctrouble25]

Police Officers breaking out windows with their batons? Where are you from?! That would never happen in our area. We work well with the police, and are grateful to have a good working relationship with them. They understand that at car accidents, highways car fires, etc. that we all have our jobs to do and we stay out of each other's ways. At house fires they stay out on the road away from where we are working since there is not much they can do there anyway. We work with them to educate ourselves about what they do and to educate them about what we do. It is a mutually beneficial relationship. The traffic safety courses are definitely needed though...everyone needs to learn how to stage trucks, where to place flares, how to direct traffic, etc. to avoid adding more confusion or to avoid additional accidents in heavy traffic areas. As for hazmat we all have the same attitude...don't touch, don't go near it, let the hazmat team deal with it.