Should Officers know how to run the pump?

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Permalink Reply by Robert on April 18, 2009 at 8:42am

everyone on our dept. Knows how to run the pump. whether certified or not. They know how. It is certainly important to always have water. And sometimes it takes someone else to step up and run the pump.

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Permalink Reply by Ryan Angel on April 18, 2009 at 9:06am

I agree everyone needs to run the pump espically the officers

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Permalink Reply by Chad Furr on April 18, 2009 at 9:19am

EVERYONE knows how to run our pumps. That is the first thing newbies are taught. They may not know how to attack an interior fire but they have to know how to run the pump. It is one of those "just in case" things. TCSS

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Permalink Reply by Capt. Mick on April 18, 2009 at 9:48am

YES

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Permalink Reply by FETC on April 18, 2009 at 10:24am

When the pump operator is being evaulated during initial or recurrent training; when the pump operator has a problem with the pump during this said company training or during an emergency who is he going to ask for help from? The LINE OFFICER.

Having an engineer or just the training officer be the trainer or certifier is BS. The line officer should be able to do everything in the fire service so he fully understands what he or she is ordering or expecting his or her subordinates to do...

More importantly, when one of the operators fails or messes up, it should be he the officer who is held accountable for his or her men.... without this responsibility we commence the finger pointing game

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Permalink Reply by T.J. on April 18, 2009 at 10:50am

I agree, right now we've got half of our officers that can pump good, I'm talking about a good structure fire. We got burned alast month when we had an officers class out of town about half of our department was there and got called to a car fire (fully involved) and no one knew how to pump the truck and we did not respond with an engine, so they had to call for mutial aid from the city department. Our Chief was a little upset and now we all are learning how to pump. I think its great.

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Permalink Reply by Robert T. Marchetti on April 18, 2009 at 11:21am

In our department that is a DEFINATE YES!!! If you don't know how to do the job your supposed to be supervising HOW CAN YOU BE AN OFFICER?

Part of an officer's job is TRAINING firefighters. You can't train someone to do something if you don't know how to do it yourself!!

Also in a volunteer organization such as ours, many times especially during normal working hours, most of the responders are officers. If they didn't know the jobs, the rescues would not be accomplished, fires would not be put out or other services would not be performed.

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Permalink Reply by Nanny on June 18, 2009 at 3:21pm

I agree with you 100%. Everyone needs to be trained.

On call or full time it doesn't matter. You still need to know what you are doing and teaching!

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Permalink Reply by Chuck Beecher on April 18, 2009 at 11:41am

YES!

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Permalink Reply by Dennis Brown on April 18, 2009 at 11:45am

Yes Yes Yes all are members know how to opp.the pump you never know when the pump opp might go down and the officer is near or buy the pumper so he can take over in a emg.

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Permalink Reply by Jim on April 18, 2009 at 11:50am

They should--but I know of one dept it's not a requirement for them OR chief officers....Figure that one out..

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Permalink Reply by Kirk on April 18, 2009 at 11:57am

officers should know how to do everything. i work my way up to an officer. from firefighter to a driver and so on. just think if you put a rookie in the officers spot? how would thinkd run? will everyone safty be ok? one of the most important things on a truck is the pump. if the driver and the officer on the truck are on the right page then the scene will go smooth. so yes officers should know how to pump the trucks.

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