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A Few Busy Weeks

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The last few weeks have been busy. Vehicle accidents, one with hazmat involved, lots of EMS calls, working both jobs in addition to duty, and doing training classes. Training is an aspect of the fire service that I’m beginning to really get into. I’ve come to learn that the training that is done at the academy,or basic classes is not adequate for the world we operate in. The training for new people coming into the Volunteer fire service starts the day they become a member, not 3 months later when they start their official training classes.

I recently reconstructed my department’s ‘New Member Training’ that was originally put together approximately 15 years ago. In the last 3 or 4 years the department has gotten away from conducting this training relying on duty crew officers to make sure that the necessary information is taught. It’s been apparent that this isn’t happening though. Members not knowing what officer is in charge of what, where and how to use map books, or major streets in our first due area is a problem. A problem that can begin to be solved with proper education.

Beyond the initial training/certification of members, it is necessary for all of us to continue training. This training can consist of attending new and higher certification classes, or crew level training honing your skills in the basics – throwing ladders, stretching hoselines, extrication….. The low frequency tasks. When your crew/department trains, is it all classroom with no practical application of skills, or do you you get out and practice the skills that are rare for us to do?

In the past, my department has focused more on the classroom than the actual skill, however,now that I’m in charge of training this year I’m focusing on changing that. I hope to update (and seek advice) as we progress this year…

If you live in southwest Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky – be careful tonight and into tomorrow,as they are forecasting 4 – 8 inches of wet snow in the Roanoke area through Monday morning.

Posted by on February 18, 2012 • Filed under: Administration & Leadership, Command & Leadership, Firefighting Operations, Fires, Funding & Staffing, Special Operations, Training, Training & Development, Uncategorized

What’s an emergency?

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I know that my 7.5 years pales in comparison to many of those that are on the Job currently, but I feel like I have seen my share of “emergencies” in this time. What constitutes an emergency though?

Merriam-Webster defines an emergency as “an unforeseen combination of circumstances or the resulting state that calls for immediate action”.

We’ve all been there – 2am, at the nursing home for “unusual labs” but the patient states they don’t really want to be transported – but their Doc says they have to. Yea, it gets frustrating, especially when they’ve had the labs for the past 18 hours and are just now calling us, but I’m not physician. Hell, I haven’t even finished college. I can read, and can see what the lab report says, but that doesn’t mean I would truly understand what it means. The other portion of this side of the spectrum are the patients who have a  broken nail (I have been dispatched to a call for a broken finger nail). We get these calls from years of telling patients “We’re here for you, calls us if you need us” or similar statements. We are here for the public, but phrases like these lead to over worked 911 systems. I’ve been told by a close friend that a large metropolitan area (not in VA) that utilizes a priority/triage based system of receiving and dispatching emergency calls. This method of dispatching helps to ensure that the most critical patients receive the most appropriate care as fast a possible, while more stable patients receive it as units are available. Now, I’m not familiar with this set up personally, so if someone has personal knowledge of it, please let me know.

What really brings this question to mind tonight isn’t the overworked EMS system, but the fact that I received a phone call the other evening from a family friend about an odor of gas in her house. She was calling me because her husband was out of town and she knows I’m a firefighter. Well, I was at work so there wasn’t much I could do for her personally. My response was simple – get out and call 911. Sure, it may just be a pilot light out, or something arbitrary like that, but why risk it? She wasn’t too keen on calling 911. As a firefighter with access to gas monitors and PPE, the odor of gas isn’t as great a concern to me. But for an average person it should be considered an emergency. Same as a CO detector going off should be an emergency (unless its a low battery alert which is a different noise from an alarm).

I have met more people on fire service calls apologizing for calling 911 and having us come out than any other call type. I look at it from the stand point that if you call because your CO detector is going off, or you have an odor of smoke or gas then calling us is a preventative measure. Similar to going and getting a yearly physical. Why put yourself at risk? We are here to serve the citizens, tax-paying or otherwise.

The public calls on us - Firefighters, EMTs, Medics – to come and assist them with something that they perceive to be an emergency, whether we see it as such or not is a different matter.

What is an emergency? Who decides?

Posted by on January 27, 2012 • Filed under: Command & Leadership, Fire Dispatch, Fire Prevention & Education, Funding & Staffing, Training, Training & Development, Uncategorized

Daily Equipment Checks

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The importance equipment checks is stressed to every new firefighter from the day they join/start the academy. Officers and instructors stress that the new firefighter know their PPE, and the equipment on the rig; and know that it works. In order to know that your equipment works you have to check it off. Do you have a policy dictating how you check your PPE, or how often you check it? Do you have a policy or a checkoff sheet for the equipment on the rig?   My department does not currently have a policy in place for PPE checks or checking off the rig. We have a truck check off sheet that was designed a few years ago by a previous officer. This was met with a great deal of resistance because quite a few members did not feel that they should be required to perform these extra tasks. Being a part of a volunteer department people feel as if their only responsibility is to run calls. This mentality leads to shortcomings when on those calls. I have personally made it a habit of my own, as well as a rule for anyone on my crew to check their PPE, the fire truck, and the ambulance. It was during a PPE check a few weeks ago that I found my face mask to be broken.  I’ve been using the same face mask since I was in the academy, and I checked it regularly. Below are a few pictures I took of my mask.

This picture shows the where the hard plastic piece that holds the whole mask together is broken at.

This is a close up and includes the piece that was broken off.

This one shows a slightly different angle with the broken piece beside the mask.

I recently read an article about PPE and the advances that have been made, yet our face masks remain the most vulnerable piece of our ensemble. This piece alone enables us to breathe in places that would surely kill us in minutes otherwise. While I do not know that the broken piece would have caused a compromise, why risk my life, or that of a Brother who may have to rescue me.

Complacency places everyone at risk. The thoughts of ‘I checked my gear yesterday’ or ‘The last shift checked off the truck’ will cause you to miss something important – a half filled SCBA bottle, an empty fuel tank on the extrication generator, or a broken SCBA regulator. These are all things that my crew has found during their daily checks in the last month. All of which will cause issues when those tones drop.

Career, volunteer, combination – we all have a job to do. It’s the same job and the public has expectations of us as firefighters. One of these expectations is that we are ALWAYS prepared for whatever we are called to. To quote Traditions Training, are you Combat Ready?

Posted by on January 24, 2012 • Filed under: Administration & Leadership, Firefighter Safety & Health, Firefighting Operations, Fires, Technology & Communications, Training, Training & Development, Uncategorized

A Long Weekend

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This past weekend I had a 36 hour duty crew at the station. The Friday shift was short an operator for the engine, and I had my 24 hour crew on Saturday, so I decided to give them a hand and stay over night (mostly so I didn’t have to get up at 6am to be at duty at 7). Friday was uneventful with the only thing going on was some training.

Saturday evening we held our annual officer installation dinner. This year it was decided to keep it a little more “low-key” and hold the dinner at the station allowing us to remain available for calls. This was beneficial due to the fact that one of the other departments in our area was having their installation dinner the same evening. I’d like to welcome Lieutenant Davies into the ranks of being an officer this year. He’s been with the department for about 3 years now, and has been progressing in levels of responsibility. I wish him the best of luck as he takes over being our EMS officer.

 

Saturday evening continued without anything going on. Sunday morning, however, is a slightly different story. Curly woke me up at about 0415am wanting to know “did you hear that call that just went out?” No, I was sleeping. As it turned out one of our neighboring stations in Botetourt had a fire at a gas station/convenience store. Thankfully no one was inside at the time. Due to the amount of fire and type construction, the IC called for additional manpower which added our Wagon crew to the call. The fire was knocked down by the time we got there, but we were assigned to division two to take out some ceiling and wall to extinguish any hidden fire. About a year ago I purchased a New York roof hook from Leatherhead Tools and had endured ribbing for doing so, but this tool proved its worth on this fire by tearing through the lathe and plaster faster and easier than all the other pike poles and axes on the floor. I’d also bought some products from MN8 (FoxFire Illumination) that were in use by me and FF Thompson (AKA – D.D.) on this fire, however I wasn’t able to get any “action” photos. Both companies products worked as expected, and then some. Unfortunately for the hook, it experienced a failure of the tube, but after talking to the company today they are going to look into why it failed and work on replacing it. I’ve always been of the opinion that as long as a tool is being used “properly” and it breaks then it’s just a cost of doing the job. Rob with Leatherhead Tools was very helpful and understanding. The FoxFire Tets on D.D.’s helmet helped me keep up with his location on the line, and in the rooms with me, even for the smoke and steam. I love their products, and so do all the guys at my station who I’ve shared the helmet Tets with. Clean up was quick and easy for us since we were called only for manpower. Topped off air bottles, washed the packs, tools and gear and packed it up for the next call.

 

I was told by a Captain on scene that the original parts of the building were something like 150 years old… built sometime around the 1860′s. I’m not sure how accurate this information is, but if it’s really that old, I’m very humbled. A building even 100 years old in as good of condition as it seemed to be to me.. wow.

I hope the owners/employees are able to get back on their feet quickly from this, and I’m again thankful no one was inside when the fire broke out and none of my Brother firefighters were injured.

 

Posted by on January 19, 2012 • Filed under: Command & Leadership, Firefighter Safety & Health, Firefighting Operations, Fires, News, Uncategorized

Experience based training

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The best training come from experience. Experiences in the fire service need to be shared from one fireman to another. The only thing better than receiving this shared knowledge is to experience the basis for it first hand.  As my department’s current training officer, I’m responsible for making sure that everyone gets the appropriate training they need. In the case of this evening, that’d be some SCBA familiarization and “confidence” training. It is rare in the academies that my department’s personnel go to, to experience a sucking face mask from running out of air, let alone what it’s like for the vibralert to go off. I do not condone spending so much time in an IDLH environment that you run out of air, but you need to know what it’s like so you can train on what your actions will be before you run out.

 

This evening I took 2 of our younger guys who know the basics about the air packs, but don’t have any real experience in their use, and I got them just that… some experience. We started off with “2-minute” drills where they are supposed to put on all their gear (and SCBA) properly in 2 minutes or less. These drills help get the mind set of putting the gear on fast, and right the first time. Unfortunately, even though they both were familiar with their gear, they couldn’t hit the 2 minute benchmark. Since they were geared up, I figured now would be a good time for them to gain experience using the SCBA while “in motion”. We have a fairly sizeable parking lot here, so I was able to set them out (as a team) and walk/jog around the lot. They had a few questions, like how to hook up the EBBS and how that part of the system worked. So, myself and Lieutenant W.S. showed them and explained it to them. Since the question was raised, they got to see what it was like to “share” a bottle. They were impressed by the amount of time they were able to continue jogging and still have air.

 

Frie and Corey learning about the EBBS

 

They were both eager to learn and were actually disappointed when the bottle went dry and they had to stop. They both have potential. They just need to stay focused. Now that all the equipment has been placed back in service, and we haven’t had a run since early this afternoon when our part-time medic crew was on, it’s time to wind down so I can get ready for a long day ahead of me, 24 more hours (7am – 7am) of providing Fire and Rescue (EMS) services to the community.

Posted by on January 14, 2012 • Filed under: Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Safety & Health, Firefighting Operations, Technology & Communications, Training, Training & Development, Uncategorized

Let’s get started….

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New firefighters and EMTs start on the job with a career or volunteer department almost daily. Some of these people breeze into the job and right back out. Others stick around and love the job for what it is – helping others in their time of need.

I started on the job seven and a half years ago as a volunteer at my local fire/rescue department. I was 16 at the time and was not planning on anything more than some volunteer service to look good on a college application. Not being familiar with the traditions or the Brotherhood of the fire service, I wasn’t prepared for the years to come. There comes a time in every person’s life where they find their niche. The one thing that makes them happy, where they feel at ease and they enjoy going to “work”. Firefighting is my niche. It doesn’t pay my bills, but it helps others.

I am beginning my second year as an operational officer at my department. I’ve been Deputy Chief (3rd in command) for just over 9 months now, after previously holding the rank of Lieutenant. As these “promotions” have been thrust upon me, I’ve had to do a lot of adjusting and learning. There are things as a firefighter that you just never think of until you’re place in a position of leadership. These past months have been challenging, and I feel as though the next year will be even more so as I embark on both recruiting new members and retaining the ones we have already brought on, as well as trying to change the training and readiness mindset of my department.

In my short (and long) 7.5 years on the job I have had both the pleasure and displeasure of incidents that will be branded into my mind forever. As the new year turned over, I decided that it was time for me to begin a form of a record of some of incidents, how they affect me, my crews and my family. For those out there contemplating getting into the fire service, I want to share these experiences as straight forward as possible to help them know what they are getting into. I also want to share what I’ve learned as a young officer, so that hopefully others that are in similar positions as myself can learn from my mistakes. Above all else though, all of my opinions belong to me and me alone.

Posted by on January 13, 2012 • Filed under: Administration & Leadership, Command & Leadership, EMS Health & Safety, Fire Dispatch, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Safety & Health, Firefighting Operations, Fires, Funding & Staffing, Training, Training & Development, Wildland