¶ Training Levels in the Fire Service
Oh yeah , man , I spent $28 on that thing .
On everything or just the little tripod Just the little tripod , the XLR connectors .
That was another $40 . What hey welcome everybody to the V-Shifter Podcast . Grant's going to derail me because I went to Best Buy and bought some supplies for today . I want to welcome you today , john Vance . Along with Steve Lester and Grant Light , we are in Charlottesville , virginia . We're here doing a blue card train the trainer .
We've been here all week and recording some podcasts and it's oh , it's been an awesome week with you guys . I've really enjoyed it . Um , how are you guys doing today ?
very good . Yeah great , it was a good day at class today .
It was really good day yeah , I felt it was , too a really great group here . You know , this is an old city . Uh , as we said in the last time , it's where dave matthews is from , so we got to check out the bar that he started playing in . He wasn't there , of course . Yeah , we asked the question when's Dave Matthews playing ? She said every Monday .
They happen to be closed every Monday , so I don't think we're going to see Dave Matthews while we're here . Hey , we want to remind everybody once again , as we always have , about the Hazard Zone Conference . It kicks off on the pre-conference on September 30th and then we have October 3rd and 4th the General Conference .
It's in Sharonville , ohio , at the Sharonville Convention Center . We have spots today .
As of now .
I think we're going to have around 120 spots left and they're going quick , so get registered . Go to HazardZoneBCcom . Both these guys are going to have classes there , and then we're also doing a B-Shifter Live , so we'll have a B-Shifter podcast . That's our general session . Hopefully you guys will be involved in that , be able to be up on stage with us .
We'll ask questions and get answers . So it's going to be a lot of fun , so join us in Cincinnati Ohio this fall HazardzoneBCcom . So today's topic we want to talk about training on all three levels .
And when we start talking about training on all three levels , we're we're , we're talking about tasks tactical and strategic and , uh , we're always telling folks you need to integrate blue card into every level of training within your department .
And if that's the case , I wanted to get some perspectives from YouTube , because Steve , as a division chief of training , and then grant , who led a company of I'm gonna call them hot shots , don't because they like you . They'd be glad to hear that they were , they were the , they were .
You know , when you're on a rescue company in a city like Cincinnati , you you are an elite firefighter , so you know how you do that . And then some of the training you also go out and provide at the task level and some of the tactical level training that you're giving as well .
So you know , to start off with , how do you , as a division chief of training , try to weave blue card into your training on a regular basis ?
Well , you know , we start that out at the academy level . Out at the academy level , when folks come in right off the street into the fire academy , we start indoctrinating that into our training . When we do hose advancement or ventilation type training or anything like that , we always try to incorporate with our young recruits .
You know , hey , make sure that you receive , you know the order from your officer to do that and your officer is going to be receiving that from command and that'll be in the form of a task location objective or TLO , as we like to teach .
So we incorporate that on a regular basis in all of our classroom instruction as well as out on the training ground when we do simulations like forceful entry doors or a ventilation simulator or anything like that .
How do you incorporate the other chiefs into that ? Because that's one of the missing pieces that we see at a lot of departments where the crews will train and we also get some company officer training , but how do we get the chief training , even on the recruit level ?
Oh , wow , that's a good question . Well , I think if you're going to get battalion chiefs from the field to come in and participate in recruit training , you're going to have to require it , which is unfortunate , but that is something we have to do . I know we typically don't do that in my organization , but it would be nice if we did .
I think that would really really help things out . It would give the recruit a good perspective of the leadership of our department .
What about just ongoing training ? How do you incorporate the strategic level In continuing ?
education .
We incorporate the battalion chiefs or our incident commanders basically in our company drills or our multi-company drills that we do Prior to the past 12 months at my agency we used to do a spring drill and a fall drill where we would have companies come down , we would give them a scenario and then the on-duty battalion chief was involved in that scenario and
would run command and would run a hot wash or whatever needed to be done after that . Of course , the drill would be preloaded . They would kind of know what to expect . Then they would perform the drill and then they would do a critique afterwards .
You guys , are both from larger systems way bigger systems than I'm from and I think what I'm seeing at my level a lot of times is chiefs that never train with the tactical and task level , but yet then they show up to big incidents or even regular incidents , try to take command and they are out of the loop .
They are completely on a different page than everybody else .
The captains are doing a great job , but if it's a system without battalion chiefs , like some small two , three station departments that haven't begun to staff battalion chief positions and there's a lot of those departments out there guys , those staff chiefs don't participate in training and I know there's only so many hours in the day and I'm not trying to shame
them into training because although I kind of am , um .
But because , because they have a lot of other important things to do .
I mean you're , you're , you're providing for , uh , getting the funding for your organization and providing all the administrative support , but and and because a lot of times , out of necessity , they are the ones responding to the calls and I and I , you know , the one of the reasons I bring it up is because in my region , which out of , uh , however many cities ,
there are 740 or whatever um , there were only like six or seven cities at one time with battalion chiefs , and now that's flipping . Now people are adding battalion chiefs because those staff level officers number one don't have the time to do it . They also see that there's a strategic advantage by getting a chief there faster and we identify that with blue card .
We want that in the first six to seven minutes after the first arrival , and so now that that is happening and it might be one of those things to further justify having that battalion chief position . So that's kind of the perspective I was asking that .
I find it interesting when you say I mean , I totally understand what you're talking about , that they're trying . They have another level that they have to worry about , that a person on the line doesn't have to worry about , and that's funding and all that stuff .
But if in the end , or even in I don't want to say the end but if they're , their real job is that they are going to respond and run a fire and they're not up on that , that's the most dangerous thing we do , right , that's the IDLH Intermediately Dangerous to Life and Health .
So , yes , they need to be good at getting the money and dealing with the council members and all that , but if they're not good at the one thing that they really need to be good at , which is keeping their people safe , that's kind of a sad state of affairs .
And I think that speaks to the credibility of the Blue Card IC certification program . I mean , if a department requires its VCs or just its incident commanders , whatever rank that is , to be Blue Card certified , then they're required to do continuing education in order to maintain that certification .
So while that may not be optimal as far as training , you know , because we want them to do more training than what's just required to be recertified at least there's something there in order to maintain that certification they have to do , whether it's computer CEs and interact with the online modules or going to do some CE credit , you know , whether it's a blue
card workshop or or , uh , just doing some CEs at their seat local command training center , you know . But even if so , I guess what I'm saying is a sort of that that shows how good certification can be for a department .
Right Cause cause at least . Then there's some criteria to keep things up and you could tell the difference . There's departments where they are truly keeping up on those CEs and the ICs show up and they know what's going on because they've obviously also trained with their troops .
There's a flip side of that , where those captains are getting things going , incidents going great , the chief shows up and it's the old chaos . You know , chief has arrived on scene and it goes to crap because that chief does not train with the troops . And it's painfully obvious Right when they show up .
And I've even said to a couple of chiefs before , maybe you'd be better if you didn't go and just let a neighboring department with a battalion chief or chiefs that do train take the incident .
I mean as hard as that is , you know , for egos to hear if you don't have time to keep your skills up on that operational level because your administration stuff is so busy , maybe you shouldn't be going on calls . But I know that that's easier said than done .
You know and I give some props to the Charlottesville Fire Department I mean here this week , I mean these guys have been on it . It is very obvious that they train for incident command on a regular basis .
Yeah , in class we have departments in this class that have just started Blue Card right , and they're taking the same instructor class as the charlottesville people and and nothing against them . But you can see the big difference , absolutely you can see , and they'll get there because they just started doing it , but they'll get there .
But but you can see the charlottesville guys are on on point and it's really it's nice to see well , and I've been a complete fire buff since I walked into this place Because it's a station with two engines a ladder , a medic , a tiller ladder oh yeah , and he has been buffed . Oh yeah , I've been buffed .
Every time they get a call I'm running down to the bay trying to take video of them pulling out .
But the other thing is is what's impressive is you walk into a department like this and I know this is a little off topic , but they are so respectful of their retirees There've been two different retirees plus a retirement party since we've been here and and these guys that the other day a retiree came in , the crew dropped what they were doing , they brought
them upstairs
¶ Honoring Retirees in the Fire Service
. Upstairs , they had coffee with them , sat around the table you know , listen to the old stories and then , uh , the other day they had , they had a send-off for one of their guys and , uh , they told me about it . Then I saw what they did on social media and it was fantastic , so awesome well , so the bunting ?
oh yeah , I've never seen that they . They had a retiree pass away and they had bunting up on the firehouse .
And usually most organizations are so out of touch with the retirees they don't do any of that . So you know there's a lot of departments that say , and they had an acronym and I think family's in the acronym somewhere FIRE . You know they had a FIRE acronym and family was first .
And there's a lot of departments that say that but it's just a word on the fire engine or a word on , and it seems like this place they do it , because then you watch , you know , get back to topic , how they're training yeah .