Reading an article about training methodology is like listening to a news commentator give a post-presidential speech analysis: It’s usually long, one-sided and boring, and you almost always change the channel quickly because you already know the ending. But my challenge in writing this article is not that different from the challenge fire-service instructors face when training volunteers: We must find a way to prevent them from “changing the channel,” so to speak.
The volunteer fire service could use a little improvement in training methodology. When a volly comes to the first evening’s training at the station, it’s very important to use their limited time wisely. We must quickly match new volunteers’ skills with a training program that doesn’t cause them to abort in the first few sessions. The quicker the volly can use the training in the street, the greater our chance of keeping them committed to training and mastering their role.
Practice Like You Play
Unfortunately, most volunteer training has more chair (butt) time than application time. I am not sure when the pendulum swung to sitting more than applying, but some programs are attempting to swing back, making the change to contextual, or application-based, learning. The best example: Montana State University’s Fire Services Training School (MSUFSTS).
Getting the most from training time is the key to performing well in the street. One of the best ways to increase the effectiveness of training: Provide trainees with a vision of what standard contextual practice looks like. The MSUFSTS does just that-it provides students with a video demonstrating their roles, responsibilities and equipment, and how they operate within the department’s management system. This video models how the department wants the work done, in detail. In other words, it provides the volunteer with a “vision” of standard performance as executed in the street, which is then combined with hands-on training that simulates real-world conditions. As Brian Crandell, South Central region trainer for the MSUFSTS, states: “If you use water in the hoses at the fire, use water in the hoses when you practice.”
A well-defined management system is the key to safety and great customer service. Each player should have designated roles and well practiced “plays,” or standard operating procedures (SOPs). Any fire-service instructor can start a training program based on the MSUFSTS approach. If you’re interested in learning more, contact Butch Weedon, the director of the program, and his staff. They’re willing to give advice or offer training.
Create the Vision
So, how do you create videos that demonstrate what’s expected of new recruits? Grab your video camera and an SOP. Perform the SOP in a standard way, and videotape it in real time. Film several repetitions so you can capture each crewmember performing their role. Note: You’ll probably need to film several takes, but they don’t have to be perfect-you’re not seeking an invitation to the next Cannes Film Festival.
Filming experienced firefighters and officers executing SOPs has an added benefit: In many cases, you’ll need to change the SOP slightly before the officers will agree what’s on the video reflects perfect performance. This is a great opportunity to work out the bugs in your SOPs and reconcile the varying team members’ views on the best and safest way to conduct operations. The process also underscores the importance of having SOPs that actually reflect what the department expects firefighters to do on scene. Each review of the video produces both leaps in learning and standardization of practices among the officers who lead the firefighters.
Note: As you’re making the video, use the volunteer officers as key players in designating and shaping the initial roles of the crew. This element alone is worth the time. Select people who have the natural or trained ability to coach the standard practice.
Realize the Vision
Once the video is complete and volunteers have had ample opportunity to view and digest it, you’re ready for the hands-on training. The objective is simple: The crew should complete the SOP exactly as it’s demonstrated on the video, performing the procedure as many times as necessary until each student has mastered their role and responsibilities.
During the training, the trainer, or coach, should give immediate feedback to students, noting when something is wrong and allowing them to fix it and finish the evolution. To do this, the coach should be experienced in training and facilitation. Coaches should ensure first repetitions are not practiced or learned incorrectly. Always practice it right: Include all the components necessary to perform the SOP, and perform it using the same management system and roles used at the call. Ensure all crewmembers-command, engineer, the crew leader and the crew-start at the beginning and end at the end. Start in your personal vehicle and end back at the apparatus or in rehab or wherever your SOP (video) shows the operation ending. Perform several walkthroughs or repetitions. The process is complete when students can complete their evolutions with no coaching input. This does not mean students cannot make errors, but that they must be able to recover from the error themselves, without coaching-just as they would do in the street.
The MSUFSTS is the leader in conducting this type of training. Take a moment to visit the program’s Web site at http://extn.msu.montana.edu and choose “Fire Service Training” from the Hot Topics drop-down menu. This program does in two weeks what most programs take 10 weeks to do. Firefighters trained at MSUFSTS will consume many times the breathing air in training than those in normal FFI programs.
Uniquely Similar
Just focusing on contextual learning doesn’t cover the paradigm shift volunteer firefighters must make in order to successfully meet challenges in the street. Nor does it solve the volunteer department’s staffing needs at 1000 hrs on a Monday morning. Volunteer and career departments are “uniquely similar”: We perform many of the same operations, but our staffing models differ. If we don’t staff the same, how can we organize and train in a manner identical to career departments? Some variance is necessary.
Each fire department faces different risks, frequency of response and customer needs. For example, the day-to-day risks for a department that responds to wildland fires and a few structural fires are different than for a department in a highly populated metro area with high call volumes and multifarious (I looked that word up in the dictionary, just for the fun of it!) risks. Simply said, we don’t all respond to the same stuff!
Our training must reflect the unique risks our firefighters will face. A department in a very rural area may limit its hazmat training, because there’s little chance that its firefighters will face incidents involving biological agents or radioactive chemicals. In my last role as a rural volunteer fire chief, our department had no major highways, no railroads and a lot of poultry houses. Our district covered 72 square miles and had a population of about 4,000 people-and several million turkeys and chickens. (Note to self: The prevailing winds are out of the Southwest. Such information can be important when you consider the aroma created by the byproducts of several million turkeys and chickens.) Turkey and chicken houses are 300 feet or longer and feature 1,000-gallon propane cylinders between every two houses. The bottom line: We didn’t need to know how to mitigate aminomethylethyl; our risk was propane.
Accordingly, we built our training around the products we would need to mitigate in the street. (We actually call them roads where I live.) Our hazmat training met every requirement of our risk-management model for responding to a fire at a poultry farm. This risk analysis, coupled with contextual training according to our SOPs, did not require all our firefighters to complete the number of training hours necessary to obtain Hazardous Material Technician certification. Our department did include a couple of certified technicians, but not everyone who would respond was a hazmat tech. This enabled the department to focus on the risk model, shorten the classroom hours and be more effective-and safer-on scene.
This is the place in the article where the purist changes the channel. Before you pick up the remote, let me say this: If you are operating on a budget of less than $25,000, with used equipment, it ain’t easy. In such cases, you need a more realistic training model, one that reflects the most likely scenarios firefighters will face, and prepares them as best as possible using the limited resources available to the department. A strong management model ensures the department’s SOPs reflect the skill sets of its firefighters. In other words, do what you are trained to do, and don’t do it if you don’t have the skills or the resources. A significant number of departments stretch the limits of their resources and their firefighters’ skills by attempting to “do it all.” Chief Brunacini of the Phoenix Fire Department says it best: “When you get defensive conditions, use defensive tactics.” Fight when it is right; run when it is time to run!
Standard Conditions + Standard Procedures + Standard Resources = Standard Outcomes
If you’re experiencing staffing difficulties, spend some time analyzing your risks. Determine your resource capabilities, including mutual aid. Set up your crews and your procedures to meet a defined plan. Example: If you are staffing well enough with mutual aid to manage a 2,000-square-foot house fire, then write an SOP defining a fire in this size home as a standard full-response alarm, and describing appropriate response procedures (see sidebar on p. 70 for an example). For fires in larger structures, you’ll need a different SOP that reflects a different resource and staffing model. In both cases, note the crew assignments and size and the command structure.
Now design the plays, write the procedures, create the video, train the crew, practice it until you get a standard performance (work gets done according to the SOP, requiring no coaching corrections), critique it, improve it, run the call, critique the call and do it again. Pick another service and repeat the entire process. Eventually, you will become one of the best at what you do.
Make the Most of the Time You Have
The volunteer fire service must treat the hours available for learning as a precious commodity. Application-based learning (coached practice of SOPs) can help ensure those hours are well used. Coupled with a well-designed management model, such training can increase quality of service and safety in the street. Good luck, and be safe.
A Second Look at SOPs
Do your SOPs reflect your resource capabilities?
Effective SOPs address the resources available to the department, providing realistic response procedures that are within the capabilities of the responding firefighters. Following is a short example of an SOP for a rural department.
2,000-Square-Foot Residential Ranch Construction Home
Occupancy range: 0-4
Staffing
Monday to Friday 0700 hrs to 1800 hrs: Nine members minimum for an offensive attack, otherwise use defensive strategy.
Equipment
1 Attack Engine
1 Pumper Tanker
Two 1 3/4″ attack lines for less than 40 percent involvement
First-Alarm Assignments
Incident Commander – 1
Attack Engine – 4
(one driver/operator and three personnel trained in interior structural fire attack)
Supply Engine – 4
(one driver/operator and three personnel trained in interior structural fire attack)
Mutual-Aid Engine 1 – 5
(two outside personnel and three interior personnel)
Mutual-Aid Engine 2 – 5
(two outside personnel and three interior personnel)
Fireground Considerations
Life safety
Property conservation
Incident stabilization
Risk Model
Risk a lot to protect a savable life.
Risk a little to protect savable property.
Risk nothing to protect what’s already lost.
Assignments
Command – 1
Life hazard
Utilities/entry – Driver Operator E2
Search & Rescue Line 1 – Crew 1
Safety/Fireline – Crew 2
When utilities completed, return and assume engineer E1 and E2
Mutual-aid officer (command support officer) – 1
Water Supply MA-E1 – 2
Next interior crew MA-E1 (act as RIT) – 3
Next interior crew MA-E2 – 3
