VOLUNTEERS CORNER ❘ By ROBERT SCHLOSSBERG
The River Edge (NJ) Volunteer Fire Department (REVFD) covers just under two square miles and protects a population of about 12,000 citizens. Like many communities, we have every type of building construction conceivable. Most of our structures are 2½-story wood frames, which are typical in many older communities. Our department is made up of two companies in two separate houses that share one goal: to train as much as we can and be as prepared as possible. We decided to focus on our similarities and abide by several of the same mantras, which follow:
- You can never train too hard for a job that can kill you.
- Once the “battle” begins, no one wishes that they trained less.
- Watch out for our younger members; they are our future and respect and learn from our senior membership.
There are challenges that every department faces, and ours is no different. The main goal of this article is to assist with some training ideas and stress the importance of communication, respecting one another, and training. This is our formula for success.
Training
Our focus is knowing the basics and “ins and outs” of the community we serve and protect. Thorough preplanning exercises and walk-throughs of new and existing construction allow us to gain familiarity with what we can expect. Walk-throughs are like having a “cheat sheet” on the day of the test!
Basics. Make sure we get the “easy stuff” right! What does this mean? It means going over the most regularly performed functions and duties from when the pager goes off to the operation on the fireground. Officers must make sure the firefighters get the most basic and important activities right to ensure safe and effective fireground operations; this is why it is not uncommon to see us flushing and getting hydrants ready on most activate fire alarms.
We drill on the basics constantly—donning and doffing gear, tagging out, proper tools and job assignments, hitting hydrants, and throwing ladders. If you’re going to get in the seat and drive, you better know how to pump, operate the aerial, and handle any special tools on a specific piece of apparatus. If you’re riding the officer’s seat, you better know it means to take responsibility of your crew and apparatus.
In many fire or rescue operations, it’s usually not a matter of if something will go wrong—it’s what is going to go wrong and how best to mediate those “LIPP” (life safety, incident stabilization, protecting property, protecting the environment) concerns. Training and getting the “little things” right will reduce potential for injury and down firefighter rescue operations. It allows the focus to be on more complicated tasks like vent-enter-isolate-search and “getting the wet stuff on the red stuff” quickly and safely!
Everyone wants to get better; no one wants to get worse. However, getting better is the result of incremental steps taken all the time. Tiny steps that lead to complacency—being too comfortable—don’t allow an officer or even a firefighter to know his limits.
“You can never train too much for a job that can kill you” is a saying on a flag that hangs in our bays. This is even more important for volunteers who don’t get the exposure and real-world experience that a busy or paid department does. Although there’s no experience like the real thing, what allows us to make up for this lack or exposure is to be constantly refreshing the activities we do most regularly with regard to fire suppression—pulling hose, knowing stretch distances, proper deployment of the correct size hoselines, and knowing how to properly communicate on the radio. Examples of proper communication include knowing how to give a CAN (Conditions, Actions, Needs) report, a proper Mayday call, and how to get priority radio traffic when providing an urgent message or request. You perform like you practice; if there is no planning, then you plan to fail. Failing means people get hurt or killed, and that’s just not acceptable.
Preplanning. Whenever possible, preplanning and training can and should go hand in hand. A great idea to consider is a “House of Worship” (HOW) series. We often put together a theme around drills. The focus of our HOW series is churches, synagogues, and mosques. Many of these structures serve as child daycare, and occupancy can be very different, depending on time of day or year. Some also serve as schools or possibly house the homeless during the winter. We also have an assisted living facility in one of our churches, which has allowed us to learn about our most at-risk population.
By drilling on the houses of worship, we sent a clear message to the community that we care, also inviting neighboring departments with whom we routinely work top get them better acquainted with our town. Even beyond our mutual-aid partners, we invited other departments in the county to participate in the drill as viewers. Many of those who participated offered suggestions that may have otherwise gone unnoticed or unmentioned. We appreciated and have benefited from the comments and suggestions from other departments.
There are many lessons from conducting this training series.
- Proper use of search rope, which allows the first-arriving company to follow the search rope right to a down firefighter’s location.
- Consider floor designations, especially in larger buildings with more complexity. There were numerous levels to this building, and this may pose a serious issue if a member is disoriented or trapped. Examples would be the basement of the school or the cellar of the main church. Know where you are at all times!
- Always have a preplan for complex buildings with such information that defines the four sides and where they are; floor designations; and hose length stretch measurements from the curb line to the farthest stretch possible.
- Preplanning allows for consideration of apparatus placement and hydrant locations. This won’t always work in a volunteer department when you are getting the same pieces of apparatus, but it will give you a scenario that you can work within.
- Ensure that all portable radios are on the proper fire channel and that you are closely monitoring portables. In our exercise, one engine chauffeur who had a portable on dispatch never heard the order to “charge the line,” as orders were given on the fireground channel. The training ground is a great place to make mistakes, learn from them, and not have them happen again. Training is where mistakes should happen. It’s where we learn and get better.
- Have radio discipline during Mayday operations and conduct a personnel accountability report as soon as possible. Our Mayday transmission and LUNAR (Location, Unit, Name, Assignment and Air Supply, and Resources Needed) was handled well, but there was some radio chatter post-Mayday that could have interfered with the actual Mayday.
- We could have better handled our mutual-aid communications. Several chiefs were stationed at the incident command post (ICP)—we would have had zero communication with some mutual aid, as we learned we didn’t have each other in our portables. Likewise, a captain from a neighboring town was standing next to the operations chief to communicate with his engine’s interior crew. It may not always be the case where you have enough firefighters to have someone stationed next to the operations or at the ICP.
- We also could have had better accountability. Assign someone to get the tags from each apparatus and elevate to Level II accountability with a working fire, even if it’s the command post coordinator (CPC) who gets the tags. The CPC can double as the accountability officer.
- Fill the CPC position as early as possible where mutual aid is present. The CPC role is there to assist the incident commander (IC) in many aspects, such as monitoring the main dispatch channel; ensuring the command board is kept current and possibly acting as the accountability officer; and any other aspect where the IC needs assistance. Remember, you are the “right hand” of the IC.
In addition to areas we saw needing review or improvement, we saw the following things that went extremely well.
- Our use of ground ladders was excellent. The A, C, and D sides were all covered by ladders.
- This building had many voids and multiple construction types, mainly Class III, Ordinary Construction. There were numerous open areas, chases, and void spaces that needed to be checked for extension. Better to know about this before the building is on fire!
- Consider striking additional alarms early in the incident, as response times may be lengthy because of staffing issues or traffic in the area. Establish a staging area along with staffing pools.
These are just some of the many lessons learned from just one training exercise. We built on this learning and set up rolling responses to all houses of worship in town, improving each time, including finding new areas where we needed improvement.
Respecting Senior Members
Respect in our departments begins with our past chiefs and senior membership, who have given so much. This is one of the first things we teach our newer members: Give respect, and earn respect back.
Line officers have included and consulted both past chiefs and senior members about training, offering new ideas, concepts, strategies, and tactics related to the fire service. You can learn from any chief the good that was done and what he felt could have been done better.
As a leader or fire officer, your goal should be that of making the department better for everyone. As you rise through the ranks, you are presented with greater responsibilities than those not yet in the officer position, especially when you are a chief. Serving as a “Monday morning quarterback” or talking about issues with people who can’t solve them won’t make your company or the department better.
Communication: It’s Not Just About the Fireground
Stay in touch with all members! Understand that if a member is thaving difficulty making drills and calls—work with that member. Give him chances for “extra credit” if his duties around firehouse and training can’t be met. Provide flexibility for those who cannot make those days and allow training in special cases on others. These members will appreciate and feel better about coming around for the fire calls. Some members may not show up simply because of passive-aggressive members making comments such as, “Hey, stranger,” or “You still work here?”
We don’t know everything—no one does; this is why we brought in some very talented speakers to bring our training to the next level. We have also used resources such as Fire Engineering and its “Bread and Butter Operations” videos. A lot of hard work was put into our training and information for our officers, but this hard work will pay dividends in the form of additional communication. If you can’t communicate effectively when arranging things like training, how can you conduct effective operations on the fireground? Since training is always different and tailored to our goals and community, most of our members who attend the training won’t consider it an unnecessary obligation or a chore.
Author’s note: Thanks to the River Edge (NJ) Fire Department and Chief Gregg Cariddi; our mutual-aid partners; and my son, REVFD Firefighter Michael Schlossberg, who assisted with this article.
Robert Schlossberg is a 17-year fire service veteran and the assistant chief and training officer with the River Edge (NJ) Volunteer Fire Department.
