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Permalink Reply by Ted Bownas on March 4, 2008 at 11:04am

Rob -

All of your lines of thought are great; in fact, the best way to do it is to throw any or all of these stumbling blocks into a scenario for classroom training, based on a structure or structures picked at random from your coverage area.

Take some digital pictures of buildings in your area - better yet, if you can get permission, walk around and take them from all sides. Pick a mix of residential, commercial, schools, etc. Make sure some of them are easily recognizable to your students, and some are "off the beaten path" - maybe new buildings or ones you don't get called to often.

Put your pics onto a laptop PC and get a fire simulation program...(there's a good free one at www.firesimulator.com) and project them for your class with smoke, fire, etc. added to various areas of the building. Coach your group on how to respond to each hypothetical incident, and how their actions affect fire conditions (ie, fire gets bigger, smaller, etc.). Be sneaky - show buildings where the fire is immediately visible, and others where it's "nothing showing" in front and fire out of every window in the 3-story rear.

Then, to tie it all together, when the weather is good, take trips to these same buildings. Walk around them, talk to the owners/tenants, find out the hazards, especially the ones you don't see for automatic alarms every week. This will do two things: (1)drive home the point that the fire crews' actions have a direct effect on fire spread and its behavior in the structure, and (2)get them (and you) started into preplanning, if you don't already do so. If you have preplans, incorporate them into the simulation - where the known hazards are, where the water sources are, etc., then go over them in the tour, and see how they've changed, or if they need to be updated.

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Permalink Reply by Rob on March 4, 2008 at 11:15am

Ted-- Fantastic suggestions! This is exactly what I'm looking for. Its tough for us as we are in a combo department and our main job is to support the career guys in any way that we can. This usually means a second or third due response from us. There are instances however that we will be first due and in control of a situation. With limited exposure to these real situations I need to make sure these guys, especially the probies, are as mentally prepared as they are with actual physical training. I will take your suggestions to heart and let you know how it works out. I will definately check out the fire simulator. That seems like a fantastic tool.

Thanks!

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Kaye on March 6, 2008 at 12:18am

Dear Rob,

I worked on a two-story wood-frame house fire scenario for Fire Engineering's web site, under the guidance of Chief Frank Montagna. Chief Montagna has a lot of great suggestions for varying these types of scenarios in his size-up document. This is a free scenario to use. Check it (and others out) by clicking here: http://www.pennwellblogs.com/fireengineering/simulations/.

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