What are the types of policies a policy manual should have?

[Venus75]

I'm on a village fire department that has a fire department policy manual in need of revision/overhaul. I'm looking for types of policies that every fire department should have. Obviously, every department is not the same and it'll depend on the types of responses. The village has a population of approximatly 7500. The village is made up of 60% residential and 15% commercial and industrial. The fire department operates out of two stations with jump companies. Just looking for ideas.

[FyredUp]

First of all, are you talking about a policy manual or a standard operating guidelines manual? They are 2 completely different things and should be seperate.

[johnsb]

I'm on a village fire department that has a fire department policy manual in need of revision/overhaul. I'm looking for types of policies that every fire department should have. Obviously, every department is not the same and it'll depend on the types of responses. The village has a population of approximatly 7500. The village is made up of 60% residential and 15% commercial and industrial. The fire department operates out of two stations with jump companies. Just looking for ideas.

The easiest way to do this is to contact all the departments within 50 miles or more and ask them if they have one, and if they will let you have a copy. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. It will take some time, but go throught them and see what all they cover. Take what you like, ditch what you don't, and modify the rest to fit your needs. Get a variety of people to go over the manual so you get different points of view. Don't be afraid to ask "what do we do if THIS happens?" You won't be able to cover every possible scenario, but you should at least cover the likely ones. Take your time with it and do it right.

[tree68]

"Policy" to me means stuff like personnel policies - hiring, disciplinary, etc. Human resources stuff.

They could also deal with practices like vehicle use, non-fire use of equipment, etc.

Other departments in your area are a good resource, as they may have already been vetted by the legal folks, which they should be.

As Fyred says, then there are the SOP/SOG/Best Practice documents - the stuff that guides us as we do our job. There are myriad resources on-line for that. Your neighbors are a good source so that you have consistent guidance - a boon if you run a lot of mutual aid.

There's no sense re-writing the book if someone else has written a perfectly usable version already. Minor tweaks to reflect your resources should be all it takes.