Structural departments and wildland fires!

[DennisTheMenace]

Half day of classroom to have the answers for the written FFII test, no practical app.

Everyone learns to use a shovel in Haz-Mat Ops

[LRFPD60]

Every spring my department puts on a s-130/s-190 and I-100 class. My fire chief is a supervisor for the Missouri Department of Conservation in the forestry department and used to run a dozer for wildland fires. My department also has a regional wildfire strike team that I am also a member of. We do not do that much training and most of it is live burns at conservation areas helping out the MDC guys.

[5pts384]

Training other than FF1 is not required, some of us have taken the 16hr course. Forestry will give you a red or green card depending on if you take the test with the 45lb pack.

[Nail200]

I think all the fire fighters coming out of training have their red card.

That's pretty basic stuff. Most of the experience in gained by OJT.

Lot of interface here in the hill country.

[Sleuth]

Dennis, with all due respect, there is a lot more involved than using a shovel. I have seen too many pictures of FF standing at the head of a chute (ravine) with a 1" hose, trying to stop a wildfire.

BTW, my wife is from Prineville, OR. They lost most of a highly trained Hot Shot Crew on the Storm King Fire. If it can happen to them, it can happen to you! Get some training if there is a chance you will be at a wildfire.

[DennisTheMenace]

Dennis, with all due respect, there is a lot more involved than using a shovel. I have seen too many pictures of FF standing at the head of a chute (ravine) with a 1" hose, trying to stop a wildfire.

I know, but we don't have anywhere for a wildfire to really go, I would say you need at least 100 acres to give it a running start, or atleast what I have seen, we don't really have that around here anymore, for better or worse. Anything that we have in terms of parks and undeveloped land will be self contained by parking lots, four line highways or the natural topography. We cover the material because it is a requirment of the state and natural certification boards, but it is not an issue that we have to deal with. Some guys get certified on their own(and are compensated for it) and go off and work the wild fires around the state and country, but we don't have the problem here.

[GodSendRain]

We don't really "train" for wildland fires much. Being a somewhat rural environment, we do, however, have some farmers who notify us when they want to burn off their fields (some can get quite grassy if left fallow for a rainy season). We use these opportunities to discuss certain conditions to be aware of such as wind directions, last time it rained, is there a pile of old tractor tires and rusty agriculture equipment somewhere out in the back of the field? (Sure!, all the time!). Of course, I'm not really sure whether you would classify us as a structural fire department, because we probably get 80/20% in favor of grass/brush fires

It seems to work out okay, because we have a way to get to the area of the controlled burn, make a plan before we start, and everything usually goes exactly according to plan. Relatively safe for "training". Of course, not every department has access to these opportunities.

Now as far as really wooded areas go, heh, that's different.

[RadRob]

GodSendRain - you must be close to me. We need rain and we have a lot of pastures. Your training scenarios sound close to ours.