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Back to the basics: My experience updating a fire department training program

A realization about advanced training skills leads to a renewed focus on fundamentals

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The fundamentals of firefighting are key in developing strong and functional members.

Photo/Drew Neal

Over the past year, I have had the unique opportunity to evaluate our department training program – in reality, not only evaluate it, but also change it, tweak it, and implement new ideas and topics.

This has been an interesting and enlightening process for me. As firefighters, we are often our own worst enemies – our harshest critic. Even when we are doing a good well, we feel like we can do better. And this certainly applies to this project. If I am being honest, I am not satisfied with what has been accomplished so far. Call it self-criticism or maybe I am just hard to please. Either way, I am trying to learn from what my gut is telling me and the mistakes I have made along the way.

But before we get into the lessons learned, let’s go back to where it started.

A new role: Training captain

Last year, I took on a position that did not previously exist in our organization. Coming into the newly created position of training captain presents quite a few unknowns, a lot of knowns and some things that fall somewhere in between.

I knew I would be developing a training calendar, I knew I would be logging and tracking training hours, and I knew I would have to ask for help from many of our staff and external partners. What I didn’t know was how much I would learn from doing things that didn’t work.

Failure is an amazing teacher, if you allow it to be. Daily I pray that I am learning from errors and correcting actions that do not foster an excellent learning atmosphere.

Advanced vs. back-to-basics training

When it comes to our training program, we have our annual training schedule, and then we have the unscheduled, spur-of-the-moment training that crews conduct on their own.

Training according to the schedule seems like it has been fine. Nothing to write home about, but better than nothing. I just felt like it was lacking something.

Then one day, I was talking to one of our firefighters who said, “We just need a back-to-basics training concept.” It was at that moment that I felt like something clicked. I had been evaluating these off-the-cuff training sessions, which I suddenly realized usually consist of more advanced skills, and it was going over the head of many of our members. The old saying has been ringing in my ears: “You’ve got to crawl before you can walk.”

We can’t teach people how to do ladder pickoffs when we haven’t even shown them how to properly advance a hoseline in a single-story residential structure. We can’t expect newly hired personnel to vent a roof when they don’t even know how to start the saw or the fan.

One question that has really stuck with me: Why do we teach personnel to crawl through search mazes that, in real life, would constitute for them to call a mayday, or at least provide some type of emergency or priority radio traffic? Are we setting our folks up for unsafe operations? I hope not, but at the end of the day, I am a firm believer that when in a pinch, we revert to our training. So shouldn’t that training be as realistic as possible? Absolutely.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that we should never train on mayday situations or train on members’ ability to make it through risky situations, but that type of training is in a category of its own. Search drills should be just that – to search.

I can personally say that 90% of the residential structure fires I have been in, I could see at a minimum 10 feet in front of me. Sure, I’ve been to those fires where it’s zero visibility and extremely hot, but in reality, that is not the majority of the fires we run. We should be focusing on teaching our people how to navigate in low-visibility atmospheres, as well as the ones where you can knock out a thorough search by visually looking around a room. Not every fire calls for us to be on our hands and knees. This is real life, not the fire academy.

So, what are we doing by maintaining a focus on these advanced techniques, and out-of-the-norm drills? Some of our saltier folks might argue that we are training to be the best, in the worst situations. And kudos to them. I love their ambition and desire to be the top-tier firefighters they are, but so often, we lose sight on the foundation of what it truly takes to reach this level of expertise. Many of these seasoned vets unintentionally forget that they started with the basics.

The fundamentals of firefighting are key in developing strong and functional members. Whether volunteer or career, we cannot properly deliver the service that our citizens expect if we cannot perform the most basic of skills. If you can tie 57 different knots but you can’t throw an extension ladder, then we have failed you, and in-turn failed the customer.

Build the foundation of people and training

A year’s worth of stumbling, trial and error, and bumps and bruises has proven beneficial. After all, we are only as good as we allow ourselves to be. Being able to identify the weaknesses not only in your training program, but also in yourself, can help you to become better and stronger in all that you do.

We are not only in the business of saving lives and property, we are also in the business of building firefighters. And just like building a house, you have to start with the foundation. A weak foundation will lead to a crumbling structure every time.

I have been fortunate enough to fall enough times, as well as be surrounded with great mentors, to realize that even the most seasoned firefighter can benefit from a back-to-basics theme.

As we begin to approach the new training year, we will utilize those salty, seasoned members – the ones with the grit and passion to do that advanced training – because they also harness the knowledge and desire to improve themselves and their organization. We will allow our followers to lead and our leaders to follow. Through a true concept of team, we will revisit the basics, and make sure that our foundation is rock solid.

As I have heard many say, practice does not make perfect, practice makes progress.


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This article, originally published in October 2020, has been updated.

Drew Neal is a battalion chief with Hutto (Texas) Fire Rescue, Williamson County Emergency Services District #3. He joined the organization as a volunteer in 2006 and became a full-time career member in 2010. Neal currently sits on the IFSTA 7th Edition Validation Committee and is a graduate of the Texas Fire Chief’s Academy.