Culture of extinguishment not safety?

[RFDACM02]

I know this is FF I and II stuff, but it seems FF I and II has turned into a class taught to teach a student how to pass the test, not how to be a firefighter. When we get new guys (FF I and II is a requirement to be hired), we go through 160 hours worth of basic training to get them ready to go on the truck. Most of the time that's not enough. They simply aren't getting what they need through most FF I and II courses, which is supposed to be the minimum standard.

This was classically the case with the State sanctioned FF 1&2 curricula here. We decided to run a county FF 1&2 program but added significant numbers of hours to provide much more of the "basics" that they called "advanced."

As I've said before, after attending the Safety and Survival Conference in Providence in 1999, two of us returned and revamped our basic programs to include all the things that we thought we should have known from day one. Our eyes had been opened to techniques and issues that I'd not learned in the previous 13 years in the F.S. Sadly, to this day most FF 1&2 curricula still falls far short of providing adequate self-preservation/self-rescue techniques, or merely gloss over it while spending countless hours on peaked roof ventilation or extrication.

[Bones42]

I agree the basics need to be instilled in new FF's. That's a must. But they also need to be as versatile as possible because they very well could end up being sent as part of a RIT team relatively soon out of the academy. Last few classes we put on each had two days of RIT which also consisted of rescueing trapped FF's from stair carrys(up and down) drags, and ladder carrys. A skill everyone needs. We don't harp on "worse case", but as we all know things happen.

Interesting. In my area, FF's aren't sent on FAST/RIT calls until they have minimum 3 years FF experience. If they end up on the truck for one of those calls, they are pretty much gophers and "learners". I think most everyone will agree that an academy training fire and an actual fire are vastly different. Sending someone who has only been to academy fires into most likely a very crappy situation, as their first fire scene, is not a great idea in my opinion.

Now, I do understand how in other departments (city paid departments) where a responding engine/truck can be assigned to FAST, but again in my area, that does not happen. FAST teams are normally mutual aid companies and requested/dispatched solely for that purpose.

[SPFDRum]

1) If your department has an issue of members improperly wearing PPE, you have a training a training/leadership issue. Not a fire service issue.
2) If you are having your truck pulling a line, you have a training/leadership issue. Not a fire service issue.
3) If your are still employing some cookie cutter tactic from 50 years ago for every situation, you have a training/leadership issue. Not a fire service issue.
4) If you are not teaching your firefighters basic self rescue techniques, you have a training/leadership issue. Not a fire service issue. (which is comical as there is a poster that defends not teaching ground ladders, extremely basic. What makes you believe they would teach something this complicated?)
Yet on these very same boards, the outcry of banning live burn training was deafening. So just how do you learn these basic skills; Throw all your certificates at it? Your college degree? Hope your cute little table top comes up with an answer? And who is having less fires? The fire service as a whole, maybe, but we aren't. As I'm sure many urban areas are experiencing.
The statistics JohnVBFD provided, it doesn't appear to be the fire service service has gone rouge and we are hell bent on killing ourselves. It proves that so many safety sally's have have polluted the fire service, we have forgot how to do the most basic of jobs: PUT THE DAMN FIRE OUT!
But I signed on knowing this job is dangerous, and unfortunately not everybody goes home. But I know this and I train at a level to that gives me all the skills I need to prevent my death or that of my crew. Because I know, despite those that pontificate "everyone goes home" to the point of bastardizing the very basis of this job, the very dynamic of fire fighting can be deadly. Oh, incase that core mission value has been lost, or you forgot; "to save lives and property". Sorry, I'm not willing to sell myself or my community short on the premise I am somehow better than they are.

[LaFireEducator]

Funny we're talking about this.

Most recent Firehouse has an article on RIT. As part of the article they have a chart which tells the reader that we are killing 3.86 firefighters per 100,000 incidents. That is the highest since 1999 when we we were killing 4.5 per 100,000 incidents. It was as low as 2.85 per 100,000 in 2005 but has been increasingly steadily since then.

Skills, both basic and self-rescue, need to be taught as buildings and hazards in your area require. If your area requires rescue skills in multi-floor buildings, teach it. It you have large warehouses, teach it. If you have marinas and you need to teach water self rescue skills in PPE and SCBA, teach it.

If you have multi-story buildings and need laddering skills, teach it. If you simply need to ladder single-story roofs, teach that.

Basic skills vary from community to community and department to department. identify them and teach them.

It's the same with self-rescue skills. Identify the types of buildings you run on. Identify the self-rescue and firefighter survuval problems they pose. Identify the skills your members need to deal with those identified hazards. And teach it.

It really isn't rocket sceince.

I guess myself and some of the posters simply disagree on the rocket.

[len1582]

[QUOTE=Bones42;1236403]Interesting. In my area, FF's aren't sent on FAST/RIT calls until they have minimum 3 years FF experience. If they end up on the truck for one of those calls, they are pretty much gophers and "learners". I think most everyone will agree that an academy training fire and an actual fire are vastly different. Sending someone who has only been to academy fires into most likely a very crappy situation, as their first fire scene, is not a great idea in my opinion..[/QUOTE]

Yes a big difference between a controlled situation and a situation out of control. And I also agree it would be good to have seasoned guys on a FAST truck, but things fall where they do.

How does the manpower issue work out during the week day when many are at work by you?

[SPFDRum]

Basic skills vary from community to community and department to department. identify them and teach them.

No they don't. That statement right there defines the difference between professionals and whackers.
ALL firefighters should be taught to an outlined curriculum such as firefighter I and II. Then you can start training to your environment. If an individual runs into an unusual situation, wouldn't you rather have them over-trained as apposed to under-trained?
Much like RIT, I hope to God we never have to deploy it, but every member gets the training. Fortunately we never have. So using your assine logic, we should not train on it as it never happens, right?

Most recent Firehouse has an article on RIT. As part of the article they have a chart which tells the reader that we are killing 3.86 firefighters per 100,000 incidents. That is the highest since 1999 when we we were killing 4.5 per 100,000 incidents. It was as low as 2.85 per 100,000 in 2005 but has been increasingly steadily since then.

And did it break it down as to what was causing those deaths? Let me guess, heart attacks lead the way? If you are going to try and use statistics to defend your inaction and lack of training, use relevant ones.

[ChiefKN]

If your area requires rescue skills in multi-floor buildings, teach it. It you have large warehouses, teach it. If you have marinas and you need to teach water self rescue skills in PPE and SCBA, teach it.

If you have multi-story buildings and need laddering skills, teach it. If you simply need to ladder single-story roofs, teach that.

Basic skills vary from community to community and department to department. identify them and teach them.

How freaking hard is it to learn to ladder a second story??? Really..

C'mon... admit now that this is all a put on. Where are the cameras???

Pathetic

[ChiefKN]

Expert

Real tough....

[RFDACM02]

ALL firefighters should be taught to an outlined curriculum such as firefighter I and II.

Many of the Firefighter 1/2 curriculum out there put hardly enough time into actual hands-on learning of RIT, mask confidence and self-rescue techniques. Clearly, basic JPR's or objectives may be covered, but the amount of actual time spent varies greatly from places to place. Many places have fought against longer academy hours due to costs and trouble having their members fulfill the requirements. Until we set one standard as the minimum and stick to it, there will be holes in basic skills community to community.

[Catch22]

ALL firefighters should be taught to an outlined curriculum such as firefighter I and II. Then you can start training to your environment. If an individual runs into an unusual situation, wouldn't you rather have them over-trained as apposed to under-trained?
Much like RIT, I hope to God we never have to deploy it, but every member gets the training. Fortunately we never have. So using your assine logic, we should not train on it as it never happens, right?

I won't disagree with you, however I feel like the curriculum is part of the problem. Each time I teach IFSTA's curriculum, which is pretty well THE curriculum in this area, I add numerous hours to both the lecture and hands-on. I know of a couple of others that do the same.

When we hire guys, we require them to already have FF I and II and EMT. What we're finding out is that very few are prepared to walk in as rookies, let alone ready to go on the truck. This is why we spend four weeks of additional training. To be honest, I think we can justify at least two weeks more.

These aren't like the days of the past where these guys can be put with a FF with 20+ years experience and work as an apprentice. At the rate we have them retiring, we have to have them ready to go on the truck day 1, because the guy next to him may only have a few months more experience. Vollie departments like the one I'm chief of aren't much different in that sense. You send guys to get "basic" training in FF I and II and they're coming back with the confidence of having gotten that training, but no reality that they have no clue as to what's really going on.

As far as I'm concerned, take out the haz-mat, extrication, rescue, and that BS and put forth the same number of hours toward FIREFIGHTING knowledge and skills. I'm not against that stuff being part of what's required to become a certified firefighter, but do not include it in what's considered the core training for firefighting. Take it completely out of the book and make a new book, new curriculum, and a specific set of skills that must be MASTERED (not shown once to an evaluator).

[RspctFrmCalgary]

No they don't. That statement right there defines the difference between professionals and whackers.
ALL firefighters should be taught to an outlined curriculum such as firefighter I and II. Then you can start training to your environment. If an individual runs into an unusual situation, wouldn't you rather have them over-trained as apposed to under-trained?
Much like RIT, I hope to God we never have to deploy it, but every member gets the training. Fortunately we never have. So using your assine logic, we should not train on it as it never happens, right?


And did it break it down as to what was causing those deaths? Let me guess, heart attacks lead the way? If you are going to try and use statistics to defend your inaction and lack of training, use relevant ones.

I guess he didn't read this article ....

http://www.firehouse.com/news/top-he...fighter-deaths

[LaFireEducator]

I guess he didn't read this article ....

http://www.firehouse.com/news/top-he...fighter-deaths

Actually I did.

And that would be great news except those are raw numbers and don't take into account the reduced number of fires.

Just from an article in Firehouse today:

I posted it earlier in the thread.

Most recent Firehouse has an article on RIT. As part of the article they have a chart which tells the reader that we are killing 3.86 firefighters per 100,000 incidents. That is the highest since 1999 when we we were killing 4.5 per 100,000 incidents. It was as low as 2.85 per 100,000 in 2005 but has been increasingly steadily since then.

Per capita we are seeing firefighter deaths rise. That is a pretty scary fact. We are losing more firefighters per 100,000 incidents since the previous highest point in 1999.

So the problem is not getting better as the raw numbers indicate. The problem is getting worse when it's compared to the number of incidents.

Why? Lack of experience due to lack of fires. Lack of officer and command experience. Fewer firefighters. Reduced training budgets. Hotter fires and the drastic change in fire behavior due to plastics (note the date is began to rise v. the rise of Walmart and Target). More lightweight construction. Could be a number of other factors as well.

Bottom line is per capita the numbers are not getting better. They are getting worse.

[LaFireEducator]

How freaking hard is it to learn to ladder a second story??? Really..

C'mon... admit now that this is all a put on. Where are the cameras???

Pathetic

It's actually isn't all that hard. All of our guys can probably do it, though some may not do it the FFI/II way as they haven't been through FFI. We actually do train on it now and then but 2nd floor operations are not a priority because we only have a handful of 2nd floors.

Why does that continue to be such an issue.

I just don't get why this is such an issue. You are obsessed over something that has no relevance to our operations.

I'm sure I could find a skill in your department that you don't think is very important, but we view as critical because of the differing districts, but to me, it's not an issue. You train for your response. We train for ours. And hard to beleive it works in both places.

Maybe some of the urban departments in your area should send all your members for Red Card training and certification. The departments should probably have a fleet of brush trucks sitting around just in case too. After all, you never know .....

Your obsession with our operations just makes no sense.

[Catch22]

Actually I did.

And that would be great news except those are raw numbers and don't take into account the reduced number of fires.

Just from an article in Firehouse today:

I posted it earlier in the thread.

Most recent Firehouse has an article on RIT. As part of the article they have a chart which tells the reader that we are killing 3.86 firefighters per 100,000 incidents. That is the highest since 1999 when we we were killing 4.5 per 100,000 incidents. It was as low as 2.85 per 100,000 in 2005 but has been increasingly steadily since then.

Per capita we are seeing firefighter deaths rise. That is a pretty scary fact. We are losing more firefighters per 100,000 incidents since the previous highest point in 1999.

So the problem is not getting better as the raw numbers indicate. The problem is getting worse when it's compared to the number of incidents.

Why? Lack of experience due to lack of fires. Lack of officer and command experience. Fewer firefighters. Reduced training budgets. Hotter fires and the drastic change in fire behavior due to plastics (note the date is began to rise v. the rise of Walmart and Target). More lightweight construction. Could be a number of other factors as well.

Bottom line is per capita the numbers are not getting better. They are getting worse.

If you want a better perspective, rather than just reading an article by a writer reinforcing his position, have a look at the study that came out of: USFA's "Firefighter Fatalities in the United States in 2009". The graph is on page 5.

When I look at the entire graph, I see it being relatively steady with maybe a slight increase in fatalities per incident.

While I don't preclude looking at the fatality statistics, I prefer looking at the injury statistics. NFPA has several tables posting the last 30 years.

Of course, statistics being statistics, you can take what you want out of them. I may play with them and see about looking at some various trends, but not tonight. The reason I want to play with them is that I'm a firm believe you can't compare year x with year y, it doesn't effectively show trends.

What I'm seeing is that fires have reduced by over half in the past 30 years and injuries have reduced about the same amount. That tells me there's been relatively no change. When you compare the fatalities per fire, there's only minimal change (<10% at first glance) with fewer occurring in the 30-year time-frame.

[ChiefKN]

Your obsession with our operations just makes no sense.

Your obsession with promoting a series of reckless and unproven philosophies is worse.