Firehouse Expo rolls back into Nashville, TN, in mid-October. From the community risk reduction workshop and company officer development program to the realistic hands-on training, there are myriad opportunities to grow your skills, knowledge and abilities. For those who can’t make it to show this year, we’ve compiled summaries of some of the hottest educational sessions. We encourage you to seek out additional information from the show at Firehouse.com or on social media using #FHExpo17.
Training as the Priority in the Volunteer Fire Service
By Justin Bailey
The volunteer fire service has a long-standing tradition of providing professional fire service to the citizens they serve. Data from the National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC) indicates that 70 percent of all firefighters in the United States are volunteers, serving diverse types of localities from urban areas to rural America.
Volunteer firefighters have many challenges for their time. Some of the items that compete for a volunteer’s time include family time and a full-time job in their personal lives as well as equipment maintenance, administrative duties, recruitment, fundraising and training in their volunteer agency. One item that tends to take a back burner in the volunteer fire service is training.
No matter where you live, the community expects a well-trained professional firefighter responding to their emergency. All firefighters took an oath to serve the public in their time of need. The public does not want someone who barely knows what a firehose is to show up to their fire, they want trained and able firefighters.
The only way to ensure that these firefighters are trained is to make training a priority. Some departments train once a month; some train every week. Each department makes the decision based upon its membership. The focus of those limited hours should to be engaging in, learning and practicing our craft. From the newest member of the department to the oldest, every person needs to be engaged.
Being that we live in an age in which not everyone can make every training, this should not be used as an excuse for not being trained. Everyone has the capacity to make training a priority. We live in a very digital age where training is at your fingertips 24/7. Be it either watching a webinar, reading a magazine article, reading a blog or simply listening to a podcast, you can learn away from the firehouse.
We all have those members who are not the most motivated in the world when it comes to training. Often the question is asked, “How do you get those members engaged?” One of the best ways is to just start training. Use peer pressure as a motivator. If that doesn’t work, find something that interests them and focus on it for a while to get them engaged. The focus should be getting them involved with training so that when the time comes, you know they can perform their job.
Making training a priority in your department will ensure that members know and can perform their jobs while meeting the public’s expectations of a well-trained organization.
Justin Bailey is a 16-year student of the fire service. He serves as the fire chief of Oliver Springs, TN, Fire Department and senior firefighter/paramedic with the Knoxville, TN, Fire Department. He holds degrees in allied health science and fire administration.
Company Officer Development Program: Leadership Principles & Decision-Making
By Chief James P. Moore and Chief Patrick J. Mullen
Finding, developing and nurturing leaders can be a challenge for many organizations. Much fire service leadership education instructs officers and prospective officers in the disciplines of management and supervision. As such, it tends to produce disparate results in preparing people for the essential balancing of principles with pragmatics and the associated decision-making.
At Firehouse Expo 2017, we share an approach to leadership development and decision-making (LDDM) training developed by the Illinois Fire Services Institute (IFSI) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Attendees will have the opportunity to learn more about this one-of-a-kind curriculum that’s designed to challenge firefighters, fire officers and chief officers.
Training themes follow seven consistent lines of education appropriate for the scope of each position’s responsibility:
- Leadership and Followership
- Decision-Making
- Communications
- Command Culture and Climate
- Ethics and Morals
- History and Tradition
- Professional Development
The LDDM classroom environment deviates dramatically from typical fire service training programs, with 80 percent of classroom time consisting of interactive student activities and the remaining 20 percent constituting lecture presentations.
Program components include the following:
Pre-Course Learning: Participating students receive reading material selected by course instructors on each line of education 30 days before the course commences. Presentations incorporate reading material into the lecture and small group discussions.
Lines of Education Presentations: Each of the seven presentations begins with a 45-minute lecture to build on the pre-course readings and establish foundational concepts for students as they move to the next phase.
Small Group Discussion: Students engage in instructor-leveraged small group dialogue with four to six participants. Instructors employ the Socratic Method, using questions to challenge students’ assumptions, biases and decision-making on provocative issues and demanding situations.
Cross-Level Exercises: Instructors increase the intensity by staging cross-level group discussions/scenarios/exercises that blend participants of each position level, highlighting decision-making consequences at each level and emphasizing perspectives unique to each rank.
Simulated Exercises: Simulations employ computer and tablet technology to challenge fireground decision-making, communications, command presence and accountability monitoring.
Practical Application Exercises: Large group practical exercises bring the lessons from the week into focus, as all three groups come together to work in company assignments. Scenarios force decision-making at each level.
Leadership makes or breaks an organization. The LDDM program strives to help students find, adapt and apply the key elements of leadership to their unique circumstances. It aims to help them come away from the course committed to being the person they said they would be when they interviewed for their position, when they spoke their oath, and when they accepted their appointment.
James P. Moore is the program director for IFSI, running several programs, including Leadership Development and Decision-Making; First Responder Resiliency Project; and National Incident Management System. Moore has 35 years of experience in fire and EMS organizations, most recently serving as fire rescue chief/emergency manager of the Crystal Lake, IL, Fire Rescue Department.
Patrick J. Mullen is an adjunct field instructor with IFSI. He has 38 years of experience in fire and EMS organizations. He has served as fire chief for the Algonquin-Lake in the Hills, IL, Fire Protection District, as well as the St. Charles, IL, Fire Department. Previously he worked for the Naperville, IL, Fire Department for 20 years.
The Successful Short-Staffed Engine
By Tim O’Connor
In today’s fire service that is ruled by the almighty dollar, staffing reductions and lack of membership response has created a unique set of challenges. Regardless if your department is career, volunteer or combination, we have been tasked with doing more with less—less funding, less equipment and fewer people. But we, as the fire department, are still expected to solve every problem that is thrown our way. In order to do that, we must adapt and overcome—change our tactics and operations—to incorporate the increase in responsibility and decrease in staffing. The most common “change” that has been made is to operate with a crew of three personnel on engine companies. While this is no doubt less than optimal, it is very attainable when you become extremely effective through training and practice. A three-person engine crew has a driver/operator, an officer and a nozzleman. Let’s briefly review some specifics related to the tools, responsibilities and operations of each of these positions.
Driver/Operator: The driver/operator of the engine is one of the most important and complex positions to fill on the fireground. The driver’s responsibility starts before the truck even leaves the station. Response routes and hydrant locations are paramount. It is your job to be intimately familiar with your pump to the point that you can locate valves blindfolded. As the driver/operator, you are the outside player responsible for the orchestration of the tasks being completed on the outside. You should be throwing ladders, stretching backup lines, and keeping an eye on conditions for progress of the interior crews.
Officer: The officer is the person solely responsible for the safety and proficiency of the crew. The officer is responsible for the 360 size-up and the initial tempo of the firefight. They need to be competent enough to make split-second go/no-go decisions. The officer is the utility player of the team. With a short-staffed crew, there is no backup person or forcible-entry firefighter. Therefore, those responsibilities fall to the officer.
Nozzleman: The nozzleman is the star player of the short-staffed engine. Every aspect of the stretch is theirs. They need to be able to judge distances, so they don’t come up short. They need to be proficient in stretching the line alone—and also control it. The nozzleman needs to be able to use the fire building and area to their advantage to combat back pressure.
By combining the roles of driver, officer and nozzleman, short-staffed engine crews can still be an effective component to the successful outcome of an incident. Staffing isn’t going to be increased in the near future, so we need to adapt to the conditions we are presented and continue to do what we do best—solve the problems we are called to address.
Tim O’Connor is a deputy chief and training officer in a combination company in New Castle County, DE. He has been in the fire service for 14 years and has held various positions during that time. O’Connor is employed as a firefighter/EMT in a combination department. He holds an associate’s degree in fire science from Columbia Southern University.
Preparing Company Officers for Senior Leadership Roles
By Chief Dan Jones & Executive Coach Kelly Walsh
As safety advocates, few of us would teach children to swim by throwing them into the deep end of the pool and wishing them luck. However, it seems we are willing to do something like that to our fellow chief officers when it comes to leadership preparation.
The fire service is awakening to a challenge that has faced us for many years but is now becoming a pressing issue: how we train and prepare fire officers to move up and assume the duties of senior executive leadership. Being good at fireground or emergency scene tactics is not preparation for the duties that face modern day fire chiefs, assistant chiefs and deputy chiefs.
When we teach our aspiring fire executive leaders, we ask who in the room has had formal education on topics like budgets, human resources, marketing, etc. If we are lucky, we see 10 percent in an audience ranging from company officer up through assistant chiefs. They are getting critical skills like grant writing, research, political acumen and employment law in the form of on-the-job training. That keeps an organization from building on past success to move forward, and can quickly put it in liability situations.
There are some very good programs that have the stated intent of preparing chief officers. The National Fire Academy’s Executive Fire Officer Program, the University of Maryland Fire & Rescue Institute Staff and Command Programs, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte Fire Department Management Program, and the Virginia Chief Officers Academy are a few. We would like to see even more coordination and consistency among the programs. We would also like for programs to serve more than a few hundred people per year.
Secondary education has also become a standard requirement for senior chief officer positions in many fire departments, but the degree should be relevant to support the knowledge needed to lead a modern fire department. Choose wisely. There are also many non-degree leadership certification programs offered by the schools of government at many universities around the country. These are not fire-specific programs but can also be useful to aspiring chief officers.
The bottom line is that for aspiring senior chief officers, there is currently no single source or “one-stop” place to get prepared for chief officer roles and responsibilities. Expecting your department to provide it for you is unreasonable and will leave you waiting. Until there is a broader, consistent program available to more people, we recommend the following:
- Execute your own career preparation plan
- Develop those you lead to have a plan also
- Seek classes in local universities
- Don’t wait; when you are promoted, start preparing for the next level
- Attend national conferences and attend grant-writing classes along with or instead of the often more enticing tactical courses
- Consider studying the topics mentioned throughout the article as well as organizational dynamics, leadership, financing and budgeting, and communication skills.
The fire service needs great leaders who will help create the future and lead this honorable profession forward. We need to remember that chief roles are truly executive leadership, and start preparing ourselves and developing others early.
Kelly Walsh has 20 years of experience in human resources with 10 years as an HR partner (partially imbedded) to a 350-person municipal fire department in Mesa, AZ. She holds a master of education degree with a major in counseling, and is a certified leadership coach and mediator.
Dan Jones entered the fire service in 1974 and served in several positions, including firefighter, paramedic, company officer, training officer, EMS chief, deputy chief and chief. Jones served with Pinellas Park, FL, Fire Department before relocating to Chapel Hill, NC, to become fire chief. He retired as chief in 2015.
