The Charlotte Fire Department’s push to rethink its live-fire instruction model began with a simple goal: more realistic, scenario-based training.
“We don’t have a game day every day, so we want to give everyone out here a game day so they can practice their skills,” explained Battalion Chief of Fire Training Thomas Clymer.
To give every member a true game-day experience, however, the department needed to upgrade from simple simulation training to something more dynamic, as Captain Jason Jefferies shared: “Our industry is unique in that the environment is sometimes hard to replicate with simulations. You can only use blackout masks or fake smoke for so much and still get the same outcome.”
Improving CFD’s live-fire training started with several basic questions:
- Where are crews performing well?
- Where are they falling short?
- What skills need attention?
- What can instructors realistically accomplish during the hours they have each participant?
Those questions helped shape the department’s new live-fire training program that uses configurable Connex containers and other training props to place CFD crews in realistic incidents while controlling the environment, repeating scenarios across the department and changing building layouts as training needs evolve. Additionally, the department changed how instructors deliver training and feedback, moving away from exercises designed to catch mistakes and toward scenarios that allow members to perform their jobs, evaluate their decisions and try again.
Building an adaptable live-fire training facility
The department began developing its Connex facilities more than five years ago, based on lessons Jefferies learned from Indianapolis Fire Department Lt. (ret.) Jim McCormack, president of the Fire Department Training Network (FDTN).
“I was very fortunate to be able to take part in that facility,” Jefferies said. “Jim is a genius.”
The Connex setup allows CFD to modify the environment rather than sending members through the same building configuration every year.
“The fire’s not going to move, but I can change the route that you go to get to it,” Jefferies said. “I can build bedrooms, and I can build large rooms.”
That takes considerable preparation. CFD uses two live-burn instructors, a safety officer and four instructors teaching skills. Rooms must be constructed and furnished, victims placed and scenarios designed so they can be repeated as approximately 1,200 members cycle through the program.
The flexibility of the Connex facilities comes with a tradeoff: maintenance.
“It’s a lot more than just stacking up some wood, setting it on fire, and letting guys go to work,” Jefferies said. “There’s a lot more planning than there is actually working that goes on.”
Floors can burn or rot. Roof props need to be repaired. Rooms need to be rebuilt. During periods when live-fire training isn’t underway, personnel must maintain and modify the facility in preparation for the next cycle.
“Having a building construction background like I do, it makes it really easy,” Jefferies said. “But having an organization that supports that work is critical. I have the lumber that I need, the tools that I need. If I did not have that support, it would be a lot different.”
The department offsets some maintenance expenses through a partnership with Central Piedmont Community College. Charlotte Fire registers live-fire training participants through the college, which receives credit for those students through the state’s continuing education system. The college is then required to provide consumable training materials to the students, which includes funding assistance for the department’s live-fire training facilities.
Clymer explained that the partnership allows the department to change the layouts and experiment with different setups: “If you go down to our facility right now, it looks like a mini lumber yard, because we try to get as much stuff in advance. That way, when the good idea fairy flies around here, we’re like, ‘Hey, let’s go build it and try it.’”
The arrangement doesn’t eliminate the department’s facility costs, but it helps with recurring expenses, which Clymer estimated to be approximately $28,000 when the department was paying for all consumables itself.
Live-fire training designed around operational needs
The goal wasn’t simply to expose firefighters to heat and smoke. CFD officials wanted to identify operational needs first, then design training around them.
“I’ve been a live burn instructor for nearly 20 years,” Jefferies said. “I’m a big fan of putting people in the environment they’re going to be called to work in and then just work in basic skills.”
Drawing on training Jefferies received through the FDTN, the CFD creates scenarios in which members arrive and are dispatched to simulated fires. Before each training cycle, instructors determine the skills they want to address, decide what training environment will support those objectives and build evolutions around them.
Depending on the incident details and their apparatus assignment, crews handle water supply, fire attack, search and rescue, ventilation and other fireground responsibilities.
After each incident, participants gather for a short hot wash before resetting and moving to the next scenario.
The department ran four types of fires during their first training cycle: a single-family dwelling, a two-story townhome, a large “McMansion” home and a strip mall.
Conditions were standardized. Victim placement and the fire remained consistent while crews made decisions such as where to position apparatus and how to carry out their assignments.
“Our members ate it up,” Clymer said. “Like, ‘Holy cow, you’re letting us just go. And we’re performing like we’re performing on the street.’”
The scenarios also gave instructors an opportunity to collect information about how crews performed, where the department was strong and where future training was needed.
Make firefighters train in their actual roles
A central part of Charlotte’s approach is position-specific training, which is particularly valuable when members have recently been promoted.
“This is your opportunity, captain, to practice being a captain,” Clymer said.
The same principle applies to fireground leadership.
“The fire service is getting younger. When do the chiefs have the opportunity to command a fire? Well, we know when we’re bringing them down here, they’re commanding three fires that day,” Clymer said.
The controlled setting provides room to make mistakes that instructors would rather see in training than during an emergency. During an active training session, everything stops if any member yells out the safe word: Alamo.
“We try to normalize any kind of opportunities for improvement by saying to crews, ‘Hey, this is the place to do it,’ if we have an issue,” Clymer said.
Change the instructor, not just the scenario
CFD leaders also made changes to how instructors interacted with the trainees, moving away from the department’s previous approach, which Clymer described as the “semi-circle of ridicule.”
“Crews came down here thinking they were just going to get hammered about everything they did wrong,” he said. “Now we’re sitting there actually talking with them and having conversations.”
By moving to a post-training discussion instead of a call-out session, instructors are facilitating a collaborative learning environment that yields better results and keeps members engaged, Clymer said.
“We’re not saying we don’t point out deficiencies. We absolutely do,” he said. “No D student is going to become an A student after one class. However, if we can get them learning more and excited about coming down here, that’s where we create the win.”
The training itself is demanding enough, Jefferies said: “I firmly believe in putting people in highly stressful situations in a bad environment. But the stress needs to come from the job they’re coming to do, the environment around them. The stress should never come from the instructor.”
CFD instructors are expected to follow that philosophy consistently. Instructors who yell at students or unnecessarily add pressure are coached. If the behavior continues, they can be removed from teaching.
Praise is part of the training approach as well.
“It’s OK to tell people when they did well,” Clymer said. “I think we’ve forgotten that. Like, ‘Hey, y’all did a great job. I have no feedback for you. Do that again.’”
Because of the change in how post-training issues are handled, some crews are identifying their own missteps and asking to run drills again to make corrections.
“When we start seeing that, we know we’re really creating that change,” Clymer said.
How other departments can replicate CFD’s approach
For departments interested in building something similar, Jefferies’ first recommendation isn’t to start shopping for Connex containers.
“Identify what the needs of your organization are,” he said. “Compare that to what type of facility you have to start with. Obviously, if you don’t have a burn building at all, it’s going to be quite difficult, but you don’t need a massive facility. You need an idea. You need a plan on what you want to accomplish, and then just start working towards that.”
Charlotte’s experience offers several additional considerations:
- Prioritize safety from the planning stage. The department developed a strategic safety plan and has a dedicated safety officer on scene during training.
- Get instructors on the same page. “You’ve got to get everybody on the same page with the methodology of how you instruct,” Jefferies said. “Everybody out there instructing, they have to have the same mindset of how we’re going to roll out our feedback, how we embrace people, how we’re going to correct things. And that starts in one of the planning sessions.”
- Make scenarios repeatable. CFD keeps key conditions consistent across training groups, allowing instructors to identify patterns as hundreds of members complete the same evolutions.
- Use scripts when they serve a purpose. Charlotte initially used scripts to ensure crews practiced specific behaviors. When instructors identified problems with establishing water supplies, for example, incident commander scripts repeatedly required a water supply plan. Clymer said the department subsequently began seeing those plans used on actual incidents.
- Look for partnerships. Departments with fewer resources may be able to identify local organizations willing to work with officials to meet their needs.
- Build over time. The department’s facilities and training culture took years to develop.
“You don’t just turn the switch on and start it,” Clymer said. “You have to build trust from the people above you. You have to build trust in the people that are going to attend. They’ve got to trust that you’re going to be consistent every day, that the scenarios are set so that we’re not going to get anybody hurt. So, it takes a while to get from where it’s an idea to where it’s a reality.”
