Training is critical to performance, especially these days, with fewer structural fires overall but the ones that do ignite burning hotter and faster.
The problem is, a lot of training is not very realistic. Classroom training only goes so far, and hands-on training can be a significant expense. It also takes equipment, and some departments simply don’t have the equipment to spare.
Here to offer some ideas for finding resources to improve our training efforts is Jason Caughey. Caughey is the chief of Laramie County Fire District #2 in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Before he arrived in Cheyenne in 2011, he was the chief of Gore Hill Fire Rescue in Great Falls, Montana. He spent 10 years working for the Montana Fire Services Training School as a regional instructor and a regional training manager for the state of Montana. Caughey is also a current technical member of the UL Firefighter Safety Research Institute (UL FSRI) Positive Pressure test committee and teaches a college course on fire behavior.
