BY SCOTT JOERGER
A summer training program is essential for providing firefighters with hands-on practice. This summer, we were supposed to train in live fire in an acquired structure. The schedule was to be five drill nights of training: search and rescue, hose advancement, fire suppression, ventilation, and pump operations—great training for a 70-member volunteer fire department whose members were eager to get out of the classroom! But, none of this happened. The permit for demolition was put on hold, and the fire department suddenly lost a great training opportunity.
The training captain needed to implement a new plan quickly. He substituted Summer Olympic Drills and quickly planned and organized the drills. The program turned out to be very successful. Members’ interest in training was maintained as they engaged in hands-on evolutions that taught them to work as a team, increased their knowledge of the department’s equipment, and enabled them to complete tasks more efficiently and quickly. The Summer Olympic Drills featured timed tasks and competition among teams of firefighters for the “Gold Medal.”
Training volunteer firefighters is difficult: The group is large, and members have varying interests and experience levels. At some stations or companies, the volunteer firefighter is responsible for all the equipment quartered there, which could include an engine, a tanker, a ladder or a quint, a rescue, a squad, a boat, an ATV … and the list goes on. It is critical to have a training plan and a schedule for outdoor hands-on drills in the summer. The Summer Olympic Drills are easy to set up and administer (photo 1).
 |
| (1) The volunteer firefighter is responsible for all the apparatus and equipment quartered at the fire station. (Photos by author.) |
First, determine the tasks for which improvement is needed. Look at each piece of equipment for which your firefighters are responsible. Select tasks related to a specific type of equipment that a team of four to eight firefighters can complete within 30 to 45 minutes. The tasks should be difficult but not complicated. Also, within a task, include some areas where you want team members to don self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) to maintain familiarity with usage.
Engine-Related Tasks
Task: Following departmental safety and operating guidelines, the team will lay out 400 feet of supply hose from a hydrant to a marked location and pump a continuous supply of water to the deck gun and 200 feet of 1¾-inch hoseline.
Task: Following departmental safety and operating guidelines, the team will lay out 100 feet of supply hose from a siamese appliance to the hydrant and pump back a continuous supply of water after a crew connects to the siamese and deploys a 2½-inch handline flowing out the window from the second level of the drill building.
You can develop many other engine tasks, such as drafting or relay pumping from a hydrant to another engine or foam operations, for example. Move on, and develop tasks for other pieces of apparatus.
Ladder- and Quint- Related Tasks
Task: Following departmental safety and operating guidelines, the team will position the apparatus and place the aerial device to the roof of the drill building. A roof crew will ascend the aerial device with a saw and cut the pallet on the roof completely in half while a second crew places a ground ladder to the adjacent side of the building’s roof as a second means of roof egress.
Task: Following departmental safety and operating guidelines, the team will position the apparatus and use aerial and ground ladders to rescue and remove mannequin victims from the windows of the drill building. The victims must be brought completely to the ground.
You can develop many other tasks such as flow water to the elevated master stream, perform a rope task or rescue, or have a group of members properly operate and maintain powered equipment stored on the apparatus.
Rescue/Special Operations Tasks
Look at the evolutions your department performs in these areas. The nature of the tasks must be so that you can set up and perform them in the same way over and over again; the circumstances or props used must be the same each time, for consistency.
As an example, you lose consistency when choosing an extrication task, such as the following:
Task: Following departmental safety and operating guidelines, the team will use extrication equipment and perform a dash roll on the designated junk car in the extrication area.
You lose consistency because the car is completely destroyed on completion of the task. The task would be consistent only if you had the same year and model junk car at your disposal for each drill.
A better extrication task would be the following:
Task: Following departmental safety and operating guidelines, the team will use extrication equipment and lift 12 inches off the pavement while stabilizing the front end of the designated junk car in the extrication area. Perform twice using two different lifting techniques. In this task, the junk car used as the prop is not destroyed and can be used over and over to maintain consistency.
After looking at tasks for each piece of apparatus, pick two for a specific apparatus. The tasks should be performed in an area where the teams will not interfere with each other. Locations must always be the same, again for consistency. Consider locations such as the fire department training area, parking lots, streets with little traffic, schools, barns, or vacant buildings that allow usage. Set up tasks and locations that allow the teams to begin at a predetermined starting time and end at an established finish time, just as is done in the World Olympics. Present the tasks to team members as instructions that are easy to understand.
SAMPLE INSTRUCTION FORMAT
Following are instructions for some engine company tasks.
Task #1. Location: By hydrant in rear parking lot of high school.
Following departmental safety and operating guidelines, the team will lay out 400 feet of supply hose from a hydrant to the marked location and pump a continuous supply of water to the deck gun and 200 feet of 1¾-inch handline. SCBA must be worn and donned by team members deploying and operating the 1¾-inch handline.
All team members will begin inside the engine at the cone placed 25 feet from the hydrant. Timing begins at the signal. The engine will proceed forward to the hydrant and then continue to the second cone 400 feet from the hydrant. Timing stops after one full minute of water flow from the deck gun and handline. If there is an interruption of water flow, the one-minute period will begin after the water flow has been restored (photo 2).
Time: ________________________
 |
| (2) All team members begin inside the apparatus at a designated location and wait for the judge to give an officially timed start. |
Task #2. Location: Station 2 rear parking lot.
Following departmental safety and operating guidelines, the team will lay out 100 feet of supply hose from a siamese appliance to the hydrant and pump back a continuous supply of water after a crew connects to the siamese and deploys a 2½-inch handline flowing out the window from the second level of the drill building.
All team members will begin inside the engine at the cone placed 25 feet from the siamese. Timing begins at the signal. The engine will proceed forward to the siamese and then continue to the hydrant. Timing stops after two full minutes of water flow from the handline. If there is an interruption of water flow, the two-minute period will restart after the water flow has been restored. SCBA must be donned any time team members enter the second floor of the drill building (photo 3).
Time: _________________________
 |
| (3) Team members connect to the siamese and enter with a 2½-inch handline to deploy from the standpipe and flow water out of the second-floor window of the drill building. |
TEAMS
Keep the same teams for the duration of the Summer Olympic Drills. Make the teams equal in terms of levels of experience, degrees of physical agility, and number of firefighters. Have four to eight firefighters participate each drill night. Because of absences for vacations, work, or other obligations, you may not have the same number of firefighters on every drill night. That is okay, and the drills may reflect an actual volunteer fire response where it is not certain who will respond and what teams will work together. The number of teams is determined by the number of apparatus involved in the selected tasks—for example, if the department has an engine, a ladder, and a rescue and all three apparatus have two selected tasks, form three teams. Or, if the department has two engines, a tanker, and a rescue and all four have two selected tasks, form four teams. Keep in mind that the two engines must have four different tasks with two specific tasks assigned to each engine.
Schedule the teams to a piece of apparatus on a specific drill night. Each team will need to be scheduled for every piece of apparatus involved (Table 1). Schedule a final drill for improvements of the times on selected pieces of apparatus. So from the last example, four teams would have to be scheduled over five nights of drills.
Before the first drill, come up with prizes for the team that wins the Gold Medal prize. Prizes can be special T-shirts, ball caps, or a firefighting pocket tool or a free pass out of a maintenance or housekeeping chore. Be creative; ensure that the Gold Medal prize is valuable.
DRILL NIGHT
On the first drill night, select judges for each team. Use members who do not want to be involved in the competition, or pick firefighters from a team, who sit out for one night of the competition. You need judges for each drill night. Meet with the judges first, and review the tasks and how they should be timed. Discuss the rules of the competition, identify the locations for the tasks, and explain any setting up that is required. Also, identify any areas where SCBA must be donned. Next, review the rules with all the firefighters.
Basic Rules
Basic rules are listed below.
- Each team is assigned to an apparatus and will be given two tasks to perform as quickly as possible.
- Each team will perform every task for each.
- Each task is timed by a judge, who will turn in the times to the training officer at end of the drill.
- A Gold Medal will be awarded to the team with the fastest time in each task after the final drill.
- The team with the most medals at the end of the competition wins the Gold Medal prize.
- Each task is to be performed at a designated location.
- Some tasks have areas designated where team members working in the area must don SCBA.
- Team members must follow departmental safety and operating guidelines, or the team will be stopped and have to start over again.
- If there is cheating, the team will be stopped and have to start over again.
- If a task is performed poorly, it can be redone if time permits. Only the best time will be reported.
- Tasks may not be discussed with other teams after the drill. The team with the advance information could receive an unfair advantage, which may shorten the completion time.
Ensure that questions are answered. Announce the apparatus each team is competing on that night. Have teams and judges break off to the assigned piece of apparatus for final instructions.
At this point, meet with each team and announce both tasks and the locations where they will be competing. Hand out copies of the tasks to every team member. Answer any additional questions, and send the team and the judge off to begin. Meet with the remaining teams in the same manner.
When the teams have finished their tasks, collect the completion times for each task from the judges. After all of the tasks on all the apparatus have been completed, review all the tasks and times and rank teams from the slowest to fastest times. The teams with the slowest times will have the opportunity to improve their times in the final drill of the competition.
Final Drill
At the final drill, announce the teams in the order of slowest time to fastest time for each task. Have the team with the slowest time pick the type of apparatus tasks it would like to redo to improve the completion time. Remind each team that only the fastest time will be counted. Assign a judge to the team, and review the task instructions before they move to the competition area. Next, have the team with the next slowest time choose the apparatus tasks it would like to redo. The team with the fastest time may stand by while the others compete, or this team may try to improve its time for the remaining apparatus. It is usually beneficial for the team to try to improve because, even if it does poorly, only the best time will count. The best time is counted because it encourages teams to continue to improve their times. The purpose here is to drill and train, and it is always beneficial to improve teamwork and skills by task repetition.
At the end of the improvement drill, determine the best time for every task, and award a Gold Medal to the first-place team, Silver Medal to the second-place team, and Bronze Medal to the third-place team. The winning team for the competition is the team with the most Gold Medals. If there is a tie, the team with the most Gold and Silver Medals wins. If there is still a tie, the team with the most Gold, Silver, and Bronze Medals wins. Announce the winning team at the close of the drill ceremony, and award the Gold Medal prize. Stand back and watch the winning team celebrate. In reality, the big winner is not the team with the most gold medals but the department, which now has teams that are better trained and can work quickly and skillfully.
SCOTT JOERGER is a 28-year veteran of the fire service and a former volunteer chief of the Pittsford (NY) Fire Department. He has worked as a wildland firefighter with the U.S. Forest Service in Oregon. He has an associate degree in fire protection and a bachelor’s degree in management.
