VOLUNTEERS CORNER ❘ By ROBERT CALLAHAN
For many combination and all-volunteer fire departments across the United States and Canada, one of the most daunting challenges is how to effectively train new volunteer members. Balancing the initial training needs of those new members vs. their available time has always been a challenge. However, with the increasing work and family time demands facing prospective members, coupled with the increasing training and response demands being placed on volunteer firefighters, this has become even more difficult.
This article offers combination or volunteer fire officers some rookie training options for when your department is struggling with this problem. Let’s look at three options with which I have had experience during my career for training new volunteer members.
Option 1: Firefighter I Certification
Of the three options, this one is the most time consuming for the new volunteer and the department or the agency delivering the training program. However, it will also be the most comprehensive and can certainly result in the most well-trained and well-rounded firefighter. In some states, this is the only option; all firefighters, including volunteer members, are required by state law or statute to have this certification to operate as firefighters.
For just about any career firefighter, obtaining this certification or department equivalent is an expected part of the process. It is likely he will complete this training at either a department- or multidepartment-run academy or by attending a state-run fire academy while being paid. In some cases, it may be delivered in-house by the department while he works his assigned shifts at the station. Although this requires dedication even for a career recruit, the fact that he is receiving a paycheck and benefits during the process puts him in a far different boat than a new volunteer member who must attain the same certification.
For a volunteer member, it is unlikely that this will be an option given that he is likely employed full time outside the fire service. The most likely scenario is that the new volunteer member will be required to attend class a select number of evenings and Saturdays, which may take up to eight months to complete, including the required incident command, hazardous materials, and basic first-aid preclass components. There may also be significant travel time if the class is conducted by an agency other than the member’s home department. In addition, there will be significant cognitive knowledge study and hands-on practice time required to pass the testing and achieve certification. For a volunteer juggling full-time employment, sometimes in excess of the basic 40-hour workweek plus family commitments, this can pose some very significant challenges. In many cases, this training requirement is simply not workable and will exclude many potential volunteers from applying to the department.
In addition to the time required by the new volunteer recruit, this option will also require significant commitment on the department or departments involved, especially if the instructors are also volunteers. Delivering the class will require multiple experienced and certified instructors for both class and practical evolutions as well as supervision for student practice time. It will also require significant curriculum development, planning, and class preparation time on their part.
It will also require the appropriate facilities required to conduct the ladder, search, rapid intervention, and live fire behavior and fire attack drills required by the Firefighter I curriculum. If these facilities are not available, you could make arrangements either with the state fire training agency to make applicable mobile props available or to use the training facilities of other local departments.
As discussed earlier, the next critical decision will be the point in the Firefighter I class that the new volunteer member will be allowed to ride apparatus; make calls; and, maybe more importantly, function as a member of the firefighting crew. In many of the departments with which I have worked, this is roughly halfway through the class. It is felt that, at that point, they have gained enough baseline cognitive knowledge and hands-on skills to participate under experienced supervision in limited operational roles. In other situations, especially where state law or statute is involved, departments do not allow full participation as a firefighter until the class and testing have been successfully completed. Although this approach certainly minimizes risk and liability to the department, it does create the previously discussed issue of delaying the member’s ability to respond or simply function beyond an observer on the fireground. It also delays the ability of the new members to translate the skills being learned on the drill field and in the classroom to actual, real-world operations.
There are also departments that allow the rookie volunteer to ride as an observer soon after the class starts. Although this requires a clear understanding on the part of the company officers and the rookie as to what he can or, more importantly, cannot do, it can be extremely valuable to both the new member and the department when proper supervision is available because it provides limited experience and makes the material being talked about and performed in class more “real-world.” Again, the key is the rookie’s understanding that this involves primarily observation and very limited participation, although additional operational participation may be allowed as he progresses through the program. The recruit’s participation should be determined by written department policies and procedures.
The final point to mention when considering Firefighter I as the mandated training requirement for new volunteers is that, in many smaller communities or rural departments, some of the skills taught during the Firefighter I class may simply not be needed or not be especially relevant in their community. Although it certainly may be valuable to the member if he moves on to a larger department or community, and it does provide the department with a member who meets the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 1001, Standard for Fire Fighter Professional Qualifications, criteria, leadership must consider the fact that the member’s time is being consumed by rarely or never used skills during the new training process. To some, this may be a controversial statement, but at the end of the day, the value of the volunteer rookie’s limited time vs. the likelihood of all the Firefighter I skills being used must be a considered when evaluating this volunteer training option.
One commonly used option is for a department to not require this certification for the initial rookie training or for members volunteering at the rank of firefighter but to require it for promotion to lieutenant or captain later in tiered careers. This compromise guarantees that the officers will have the needed certifications to deliver relevant and correct training and make sound operational and tactical decisions without forcing the requirement on the majority of the membership or on the new members.
Overall, although Firefighter I (and possibly Firefighter II) certification as the initial training requirement will provide the department with a volunteer rookie firefighter capable of stepping into a wide range of firefighting and rescue situations, the time commitment is considerable. Some volunteers will be capable of completing this process, but for many—especially those juggling multiple jobs and family responsibilities—it simply will pose too much of a burden.
The loss of potential volunteers because of this requirement will certainly impact the combination or volunteer department’s ability to maintain staffing and, thus, may create significant operational issues on the fireground. If mandated by state law or statute, the department’s leadership will have no choice but to use this as the minimum training standard for the volunteer members. However, if not mandated, the department leadership should carefully weigh the pros and cons of mandating this level of training as well as the consequences it will have on the staffing levels and response capabilities of the department.
(1) You can incorporate rookie training into the weekly training schedule. Here, rookie members work on hose handling skills with the entire fire department. (Photos courtesy of author.)
Option 2: Mini-Schools
This option represents a compromise between requiring the completion of a Firefighter I certification class and the “train-as-you-go” volunteer rookie training option. Although it requires an upfront training commitment by the new member, it does not eat up the 150-plus hours required by Firefighter I. These programs can be either department or state-mandated and can range from a mandated 20- to 40-hour program to one of 60 hours or more, as was the case in my previous suburban volunteer department located outside Burlington, Vermont. In that case, the department had run a 20- to 25-hour Basic Apprenticeship class since the 1970s for all new members. In the mid-1990s, department leadership determined that the course was no longer adequate to meet the changing district demographics and firefighting situations being encountered by its members such as the number of large footprint and multilevel hotels, offices, and commercial buildings under development.
The department then formed a committee and developed an NFPA 1001-based 65-hour rookie class that would focus primarily on firefighter safety, local building construction, fire behavior, personal protective equipment and self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA), hydrant-based and rural water supply operations, laddering, search, and residential fire attack operations. The department then decided to involve our two most-used mutual-aid departments, which, at the time, were running a significant amount of automatic mutual aid on brush fires, alarm trips, smoke investigations, and reported structure fires.
After a few minor hiccups during the first year of delivery, the program proved to be very effective. In fact, it served as the basis for a countywide new volunteer member training program now being delivered regularly.
In the case of my department, the new volunteer members were not allowed to make runs until they successfully completed the class. In some cases, they were allowed to make the fireground in support of postincident roles such as changing SCBA cylinders, setting up lighting, picking up or loading hose, and placing SCBA back into service after the incident.
The class, which generally ran two to three months, was delivered two nights per week and on selected Saturdays, which were used primarily for hands-on evolutions. The new volunteers were required to attend 80 precent of the classes and had to pass both written and practical testing at its completion. New members were still required to attend the regularly scheduled department training night, which was, at times, also used to deliver components of the class. If they failed either the final written or practical tests, they were allowed to retake the tests after a period of remediation. If they failed either test a second time (and some did), they were generally offered noninterior firefighting, driver, or support volunteer positions.
To some, this type of a program may seem to compromise firefighter safety, as it does not meet the full NFPA 1001 standard; I disagree. Although not all NFPA 1001 skills were included in the program, it did contain most of the everyday residential firefighting tasks that new members were expected to perform in our response area, and they were tested on those skills per NFPA 1001 criteria before being allowed to respond on the apparatus and operate on the fireground. In addition, once cut loose, they were well supervised, being paired with an officer or senior member on the fireground until we were confident that they had grasped the skills and were able to apply them safely and effectively in real-time fireground operations. The commercial building firefighting and alarm investigation skills taught during the class were supplemented by department-level training on scheduled drill nights.
Although a single department can deliver this type of program exclusively to new volunteer personnel, there are significant advantages in delivering it in a multiagency format such as those described above. First, it enlarges the class base and makes it worthwhile to run the class more often, which will reduce the waiting time for those wanting to start the class. It also enlarges the instructor pool, which allows for a greater level of subject matter expertise for the class. It will also give newer instructors greater opportunity to deliver classes, which will increase their level of experience and skill. It may also reduce “instructor fatigue,” as the increased instructor pool will allow the instructional load to be shared through multiple agencies.
The program will also create a common tactical and skill base that will allow for a greater level of interoperability and reduce delays and errors caused by noncompatible fireground operations when operating together. It will likely also increase firefighter safety and allow members from different agencies to work on the same task or function with a reduced risk of injury, as they will all be functioning on the “same page.”
However, there are certainly challenges associated with the multidepartment rookie volunteer training model. Perhaps the biggest issue is that it forces the departments involved to develop a single curriculum based in great part on common fireground procedures. Although departments that may already operate together from a “common script” will not have an issue or create problems, in other areas currently not functioning in the same way, this will be a tough nut to crack. To be successful, this multiagency training program may require significant changes in department culture; attitude; and, in some cases, leadership.
In the long run, developing a multidepartment response culture may prove to be very beneficial to department-level and regional fire operations, especially if automatic aid or requested mutual aid is an everyday occurrence.
Another issue that may create problems is conflicting scheduled drill nights. This may require a more long-term solution such as deciding on a common scheduled drill night for all departments involved, which sounds much easier than it may be; typically, there is a strong attachment to “the drill night we’ve always had.” Again, it may rock the culture, but in the long run, it may have significant effects on mutual aid because it will make multiagency drill nights much easier to schedule. There may be a brief “storm,” but it will soon be accepted as the new normal.
The final issue involved with developing and delivering a multiagency volunteer rookie class is determining which baseline knowledge and skills will be delivered. Although this may not be a significant challenge in multiple districts with a homogenous building construction, occupancy, and hazard base, for departments with differing response-area demographics, this could pose a major hurdle. In addition, it may be daunting for departments that offer a differing set of specialized responses, such as vehicle extrication, technical rescue, water/ice rescue, or hazardous materials response, to determine what, if any, of those operations will be listed as a basic or baseline skill to be taught during the rookie class. Generally, the most practical way to handle this is by developing a task inventory for each department that, through a group brainstorming process, lists the fireground tasks and associated skills most commonly performed by the new department members. Developing this inventory and then comparing it side by side to the skills inventory developed by the participating agencies will often yield many common tasks and functions quite quickly. You can then deliver those uncommon skills on the department level at each department’s drill nights at the completion of the class.
During this process, remember that the focus of the rookie class is to teach basic entry-level skills. My department covered a primarily suburban area with a number of townhouse and garden apartments, a medium-sized college campus with multistory dorms and classroom buildings, many small stores, fast food restaurants, a hospital, multiple three- to five-story office buildings and hotels, as well as a few medium-sized manufacturing and warehouse properties. We also covered a rural area with many year-round and seasonal lakeside homes of varying sizes, some with significant access and water supply issues.
The second department involved covered a similar district, except without the college campus and fewer commercial multistory buildings and warehouse occupancies. The third department involved covered a small city with tightly packed multistory residential properties; mixed-use properties and typical urban business occupancies; and several (sprinklered) Type IV mill structures renovated into offices, retail space, and apartments. All three departments ran truck companies and were heavily invested in strong truck company operations.
This variety of occupancies proved a significant challenge to those tasked with developing and delivering the training program, but after a hard look at the common fireground activities, a compromise was reached and an effective program covering the needs of all three departments was put in place. It was decided that the program would focus primarily on single- and multistory single-family residential and townhouse fire operations that represented the vast majority of all three agencies’ fires.
It was also determined that, because of the large number of alarm trips and commercial smoke investigations (most of which were determined to be false) being handled as mutual-aid responses, basic fire alarm system design, basic sprinkler/standpipe operations, and common multiagency fire alarm/smoke investigation procedures would be covered in the class as well. All other commercial building fire operations would be handled either through department training nights or common mutual-aid training after the completion of the class.
Certainly, what you choose to cover will depend entirely on your response area. For example, if my current departments in Louisiana designed a similar program, we would have to spend far more time on rural water supply operations (because we have far fewer hydranted areas) as well as far more time on brushfire and interface operations. Not only are these more frequent responses, but the fuels in our area can far more quickly and unpredictably burn when compared to the typical northeastern fuels. On the flip side, we would likely spend far less time covering second-story operations as most homes are single-story structures because we have no townhouses or garden-apartment buildings. We would also likely delete the sprinkler/standpipe components because we have no multistory commercial buildings with standpipes and only one sprinklered structure and spend little time on commercial alarm investigations because we have a limited number of buildings with alarm systems and rarely respond to alarm trips. So, again, it is important to understand that this type of class must be based on local conditions and local responses because there is limited class time available that must be maximized.
Developing the curriculum will likely require compromise from all agencies involved; this is a process that may not happen overnight, but with the cooperation of the leadership, the multiagency rookie training class approach can have significant long-term benefits. However, it can be done with the commitment from both the members and the leadership.
This model may be most effective for training rookie volunteer members because it provides the delivery of a reasonable amount of fireground skills in a reasonable period of time. In addition, the skills taught are based on local experience and local building construction, occupancy, and fireground operations, all of which are important. However, this model may not necessarily work for you.
Option 3: Train as You Go
This is a common way to train new volunteer members in America’s volunteer and combination fire service. It involves training new members alongside the existing members of the department at weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly scheduled drill nights. Although this way of training rookies may be the easiest because it involves no significant additional effort from the department and no additional time from the rookies (beyond regular drill attendance), it is also the least effective. The good news is that there are additional elements and components that you can add to improve the effectiveness of this training model.
The first thing you can do is to break up your training drills by experience level into at least two groups: the “rookies” and the experienced members. This will allow the more fundamental aspects of the topic to be taught to the rookies at the basic level and the more advanced material to the experienced personnel. By designing your training to be delivered in this way, you can teach the rookies the basic aspects of the tasks without boring the more experienced members, and in turn you can train the experienced members on the advanced elements without overwhelming the rookies who lack the basic knowledge needed to understand the advanced concepts or tasks. This technique is commonly used by my combination department, and not only is it is very effective in delivering quality, experienced-based training, but it also has a positive effect on drill attendance.
Obviously, this work will require additional effort on the department’s part because it must develop multiple objectives and lesson plans; additional instructors; and, depending on the evolution, additional safety officers. It may also require using multiple apparatus and multiple training props. Although using this multilayered approach may pose a challenge to a smaller department because of the additional resources needed, the solution would be to combine training with other departments. As discussed earlier, this may require compromise because you will have to develop common lesson plans teaching common skillsets and operations. In the long run, the payback of a common skillset and common tactics can only increase the effectiveness of these departments when working together.
The training staff could also break up the program into three groups by adding an intermediate-skill level. Of course, this would require even more instructors; resources; and, possibly, training props, but it could also be more effective because it would allow the department to deliver an even more specific level of training to that intermediate-level member.
You can also conduct additional rookie-only training once, twice, or three times a month as a supplement to the department’s scheduled training nights. Although this would not fully embrace the “mini-school” concept, it does allow the rookies to have additional time on their own to either practice and perfect the skills learned during weekly training or work on new skills. Again, this will require additional commitment by the department’s instructors and senior staff, who will be required to commit extra time to the volunteer rookie training program. A combination department can use this type of additional training more easily because it will have full-time staff that can deliver the additional components while on duty, although it will also work in a volunteer department committed to a strong volunteer rookie training program. Involving the full-time staff also allows the department to deliver supplemental one-on-one or small-group rookie instruction by the on-duty personnel, especially if the rookies are allowed to ride out.
Another option to supplement regularly scheduled drill nights and, if selected, the additional rookie-only drill time is computer or Internet-based training; text-based training can also be required. These trainings will be most effective if the rookie volunteer has access to a computer or wireless device outside the fire station and if they feature some type of verification or testing component to verify that the rookie has indeed viewed/read and comprehended the material. You can either build this into the computer-driven training or deliver it at the fire station after the rookie has stated that he has covered the materials. If your department uses a point system for the time spent training, use the verification process to award points. Again, combination departments use this element for their training. There, all new members are required to complete a computer-based Firefighter I training program to complete the probationary process.
The most obvious downside to such a computer-based system will be the cost of the program and the needed technology to operate the system. This can be a significant challenge to a smaller department with funding issues. Another downside is the ability of a smaller department to provide a member with the training to deal with system issues on a consistent basis. If problems with the system cannot be quickly and correctly addressed, volunteer rookies may stop using it because of its recurring problems and delays in getting them corrected.
(2) In some volunteer departments, rookie training may include apparatus and pump operations. In others, members may be taught skills later in the instructional process.
The final piece to any of the three options is a “skills checklist” or task book. Although it is important to track skills in any volunteer rookie training system, these tools can be especially important when using the “Train as You Go” option; unlike the other methods, it is far less structured and does not use ongoing grades or skill testing. Having these records will track the progress of the rookies and give those responsible for monitoring their training a snapshot of what they have accomplished at any point in the training. If possible, develop these and have them available in electronic form because paper checklists and task books can be lost or damaged.
Once again, my combination department uses a rookie skills checklist, which must be completed to end the probationary process. The skills cover basic tasks such as identifying and locating basic tools on the apparatus, changing SCBA cylinders, using a radio, loading and coupling hose, donning all PPE and SCBA within two minutes, completing water supply evolutions, demonstrating the ability to perform basic vehicle extrication operations, and performing fire attack operations in live fire evolutions. Any senior firefighter or officer can sign off on these skills, and the process typically takes six to eight months to complete; they are also required to complete ICS 100 and 200. The final component is a written test on Firefighter I cognitive materials and departmental policies and operations.
Mentoring
When a mentor is assigned to a new rookie member to answer questions, he should show him the way and personally monitor progress so the rookie’s chances of success increase greatly. Just volunteering for an even slower, smaller volunteer department can, at first, be a daunting proposition, and without somebody to show the way, many new members get lost, confused, or frustrated and quit before they complete the process. The mentor must have the complete trust of the department leadership; it is likely the mentor will become the face of the organization to that new member and be the one to whom the volunteer rookie will go when a question or problem arises.
The personnel selected should understand the concept of mentoring; understand its role in the training program; understand department procedures and operations; and, most importantly, want to serve as mentors. The department should develop written procedures for selecting and training mentors as well as policies for how the program will operate. There are many programs that you can use as a template and subsequently modify as needed to fit your operations.
ROBERT CALLAHAN is a 40-year fire service veteran and the fire prevention officer and a captain with Bossier Parish (LA) Fire District 1, the training officer and a captain with Webster Parish (LA) Fire District 7, and the training chief and former assistant chief with Webster Parish (LA) Fire District 3. Callahan is also an adjunct instructor with the Louisiana State University Fire & Emergency Training Institute (LSU-FETI), a contract instructor with the National Fire Academy, and a district representative for the Firefighters Cancer Support Network. He has instructed at conferences throughout Louisiana including at the Louisiana Arson and Fire Prevention Association Conference, the LSU-FETI Officer Conference, the LSU-FETI Municipal School, the Louisiana Fire Chiefs Association Annual Conference, and the F.O.O.L.S. Brothers of the Boot events.
