FireLink

Anyone have suggestions on how to provide interesting training for the paid and volunteer staff with no field and little budget for props. We have classrooms covered but when it comes to hands on we have to just fit in where we can. What are the other departments doing for hands on skills?

FirefighterCloseCalls.com Billy gives a list of 10 minute drills on his web page. I use a lot of them and build from there.

Use old masks and black out the faces, smoke out. Spaghetti drills. Flow water when weather permits. Folding tables for walls.

We have lots of fun building stuff to tear up or burn. Scrap lumber works well for just about anything you can dream up. Even if it has to smaller scale. The laws of physics are still the same.

Our local towing company brought four wrecked cars to our station in the spring. We had several extrication training meetings with them. We did everything we could imagine to those cars....then we burned them. When we were finished playing with them, the towing company hauled the cars off for scrap. Then they donated the money to the station. We both won. They got the tax write off and we got training and money for the station.

Other than that, we take equipment from the trucks and use that for training. Internet searches sometimes lead to good training finds. Some of the equipment manufacturers offer training videos at no cost.

We also invite training officers from other jursdictions to visit and conduct training for us. Or, we invite their whole station/department and conduct multijurisdictional training. If nothing else that gives a little different point of view and some good fellowship.

Hopefully, that gives an idea or another direction for thinking.

anothering you can do is also talk to your local goverment township borough city about any building that is going to be rip down and used the building do search and rescue ladder works and vent. you can do number of things to it. talk to differnt companys in your area about building that they dont want and they are going to rip down ask them if you can used them.. if you get something like that you can other department come in and train with them as well. another thing is if want to pull hose lay hose anything with hose talk to a company in the area if you can you their parkent lots and start pulling hose all around the parken lot make up different things up like dumpster fire tractor and tralier fire what ever.. used your mind anything you can think of and put that in your training part..

The SCBA Mask blackout thing we done to the point of boredom. We can't burn anywhere due to lack of field and no city owned open space other than parks or the airport. As far as old buildings, in accordance with NFPA 1403 you just about can't make them comply legally. I'll check with the local lumber yards about scrap. We used the old hospital until it became a senior center and they won't let us do anything there now. We have no space at the station for cars but we have one wrecker yard that will let us come to their car field. All in all we can more than justify a training field, but thanks for the ideas, keep it up.

probably meant over the facemask....so you can't see.

OK, so why would you wear your coat backward?

thanks for the suggestions on some training drills. learned some new ones from this post.

Sorry! I was away for a bit ...I did mean hood. I am a bit claustrophobic so I could do this exercise 25 times and still learn things from it. Thanks for keeping me straight! :D

deputy13 said:

chase1 said:

That's what i'm asking? Why would you put your hood on backwards for that matter? It's still the same. Assuming she misworded it. Speak up Jenn.

some training officers do this to simulate a smoke filled room. it blocks your face from seeing the area around you, and nothing has to be done to the air pack face piece. no damage to any eqp. then.

Isn't duct taping old SCBA masks the same as wearing a nomex hood on backwards? It's just training....We did donning and doffing a million times during FF 1 and I can't possibly think of a time I would EVER put my hood on backwards except for training. Press and seal stuff would be great but when you're a small dept with even a smaller budget the money spent on that is better spent on new gear which we need desperately.

I'm not trying to cause an issue but I don't see much difference to old duct taped masks or a nomex hood on backwards.

We had this issue so I solved it with $4.00. I went to the fabric store and purchase black fleece, thread and thin elastic band. I cut out the fleece to size, sewed in elastic and we now have covers to fit over the mask. This makes it easy to remove if you need to with out having to remove everything else. 

We use the local junk yard for cars that they are through with. They donate them for free. We also get left over wood and stuff from local builders and build our own rooms( sure their small but still similate and if you add an old chair you picked up for free, you can still have a good burn for a short time anyway.

We get cars donated from the junk yard and some supplies donated.  We also use an abandoned parking lot to do pump ops drills as it has 2 hydrants there.  Here is another site that has some good ideas too. http://www.firefighterclosecalls.com/weeklydrills.php

I like the hay bales.  We've used them for fire extinguisher training specifically because they are hard to put out.  Also less toxic than many other items. 

We go to the junk yard (we have a small lot here at the station) and no worries about glass or metal shards.  Need space?  Do a mock accident at your high school.  Good PR and accident prevention at the same time.  Helps to "kill" the most popular kid too.

The local trash pick up company gave us an old dumpster to work with.

We use our landfill for some training that would not be acceptable here on site.  We also do wild fire training by burning fields locally when asked. 

A popular easy to set up training is the road rally for learning new roads.  Can be done as driver training (new guy drives, old guy navigates), or in POV for time.  Find x locations in y minutes.  Photocopy maps and white out the road names.  Pass them out and have folks fill them in.  Or ask them to highlight ABC Rd etc.  We also send them to nearby fire houses so they know where they are going on mutual aid calls.

Engine5Lt, now I get what you were saying. Sorry if my two cents sounded a little sarcastic.