Fire Department Training Essay

Training is an essential part of the fire department, whether it is annual, daily, or basic training; there are often too many resulting unnecessary deaths and injuries. Training is the fundamentals to any job, and in the fire department training is the only thing fire fighters can rely on to do their job and save their life and others. Training has specific goals in order to improve individual’s performance, productivity, capability, and capacity. Police, emergency medical services, and fire service personal’s jobs are changing each day by the new obstacles they have to face. This is why keeping up with training is very important. The use of digital media within the fire department has transformed how the fire department learns in a safe and
realistic environment. Although, live fire training allows fire fighters to think clearly and critically to solve problems quickly while under stress there is the chance that death or injury could occur. The popular live training method utilized by numerous of fire departments allow participants to practice firefighting techniques and develop an understanding of the thermal conditions inside a structure.
While other types of training included the mind-numbing classroom, mentoring, and computer based training. With new media and interactive technologies aimed towards the fire departments, training has become a nonchalant topic. These new and uprising technologies have the advantage to be mass distributed at minimal or no cost, allowing fire department members from all over the world to offer new and exciting ways to train. A common catchphrase in the fire department is “Don't train till you get it right, train till you can't get it wrong!” The training division in the fire department has a very challenging and demanding task. They are responsible for the development, implementation of initial, and continuing education training to all personnel of that specific department. Training divisions
have the responsibility to train recruits, career personnel, and volunteer personnel and have in service, in station, multi station, and multi jurisdiction training. Many departments have daily, monthly, quarterly, and annually training with a wide variety of material, they need to cover. The goal of the training division is to provide the highest quality of training, instruction, and educational support to the department. This is intended to prepare the department to serve the community in the most efficient and effective means possible, and to ensure the safety of the citizens and personnel. “Virtual reality provides a realistic inside look at many types of scenarios. Video-on-demand enables peer-to-peer instruction across miles and even continents. Interactive online modules with progress tracking and completion reporting enables self-paced learning on a wide variety of topics, taken during free time and resulting in documented continuing education units. Databases serve up volumes of information with just a few keystrokes. (CITE) Each of these new technologies comes in two types of formats hard and soft. Hard formats would be some kind of physical form like a digital videodisc, compact disc read only memory, paper, or textbook. However, soft formats would be websites. Both hard and soft formats allow for multiple distribution channels that are forming to create peer-to-peer fire department training opportunities. Nevertheless, allowing fire departments countless new opportunities to satisfy training needs within the department and state or federal requirements. The new world of the internet opens the door for many opportunities. When a department puts together a training piece it can be the distributed through multiple channels, allowing for change to the specific audience and delivery method. In addition, multiple formats and distribution methods allow for an increase in availability. Departments will be able to access training material no matter where that organization is or the time of day permitting for no travel time, no time off from duty, and no budget strain. “The National Fire Academy (NFA) serves as the U.S. Fire Administration’s national focal point for advancing the training and professional development of the fire and emergency services and allied professionals to deal more effectively with fire and related emergencies. Our free, specialized training courses and advanced management programs target middle- and top-level fire officers, fire service instructors, technical professionals, and representatives from allied professions.” (CITE) Through the National Fire Academy, classes can be delivered online, or at their campus located in Maryland, and throughout the United States with cooperation with state and local fire training organizations and local colleges and universities. Implementing a National Fire Academy course into a departments training division will cut costs and allow for a self-paced learning environment resulting in obtaining necessary training for fire departments. The International Association of Arson Investigators “serves as the global resource for those serving and associated with the fire, arson and explosion investigation profession with respect to fire safety/prevention, arson enforcement/prosecution, and fire claims/litigation.” (CITE) The association published a new online module and in conjunction with an offline digital videodisc combination. Police, emergency medical services, and fire service personal are always the first ones on scene of fires by the time arson investigators arrive important evidence can be destroyed or damaged. It is very important for police, ems, and fire service personal to recognize and report such crucial evidence. Something that police, emergency medical services, and fire service personal might overlook could be the key to solving an arson case. This is why the International Association of Arson Investigators saw a need to create a training piece in recognizing and reporting firsthand fire ground observations. The training combines core-teaching concepts with experts from each job field with documentary from actual fire scenes with real police, emergency medical services, fire service personal and first responders to document, in their words and actions, how to observe, preserve, and communicate what they see, hear, smell, and touch during the response. Ensuing, the training material is a reality-based method to help make the connection between knowledge and performance. Fire departments ranging from volunteer to combination departments with more money to spend then needing to pinch a penny are using digital media to help with training.
An online training program called TargetSolutions has conducted courses to firefighters from all 50 states and many countries around the world via the internet, providing three primary components, more than 700 training courses including 250 hours of accredited fire and emergency medical services recertification, a learning management system, and a records management system. TargetSolutions have become the industry’s leader because of its robust online training catalog, easy to use platform, unrivaled recordkeeping, and exceptional customer service. Through, “Internet-Based Distributed Learning it allows for creative combinations of text, animation, video, hypertext linking, drill, and self-test with immediate feedback, and group learning via discussion boards, live chat, e-mail or audio-video conferencing”. (CITE) According to the MillerPierce study taken in 2012, more than 350 fire service personal from various ranking were surveyed and 76 percent believe that online training is a viable training alternative. The top ten key benefits associated with online training are ensuring compliance, cost savings, overall convenience, improved response times, increased comprehensions, confirm delivery, alert notifications, training management, going paperless, and a reduced liability. (CITE) These key
benefits bring to the table financial and operational benefits too. RFG Research surveyed 1,055 to obtain research on the “National Benefits of Online Learning in Fire & EMS Survey”; the results suggest that a significant majority of fire and emergency medical services agencies using online training are achieving financial and administrative benefits. Table 1 illustrates the financial benefits reported and the operational benefits reported from the RFG Research survey. These cost saving benefits will help those departments looking for a cost effective solution to make meeting compliance easier and more efficient. The executive Vice President, at TargetSolutions states, “Our goal is to deliver easy-to-use technology that can help an organization improve productivity and save money. With our platform, organizations can schedule training and monitor compliance 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Our training has proven to reduce injuries and claims, resulting in an excellent return on investment.”
Table 1 Fire departments looking to change the traditional mind-numbing classroom, mentoring, and textbook reading training can transform with new digital media through interactive technologies. Meeting federal or state and department training requirements whether it is daily, monthly, quarterly or annually online training brings both operational and financial benefits. For example, the financial benefits of having online training would reduce the number of necessary classrooms, administrative expenses, fuel reimbursements, instructor costs, and more simple unnecessary money spending. Operational benefits would include a greater convenience in training times, easier distribution of content, easier maintenance of training records, and simplified scheduling of training. With programs like TargetSolutions, the National Fire Academy, the International Association of Arson Investigators meeting goals of training divisions will be a stress-free task. The ability to complete training in the trainees comfort zone will allow for a higher compliance rate. One of the greatest motivators is the accessibility and decreasing expenses. In addition, with technology taking over many things in the world, new media and interactive technologies will offer new and exciting ways to train. The more knowledge from training will help reduce unnecessary deaths and injuries within the fire department. Ensuring that everyone goes home is the overall goal of any police, emergency medical services, and fire service personal and with the use of digital media training the probabilities will increase.