May 24--Kilgore Fire Department had two assistant chiefs on hand this week, hosting a Saudi Arabian firefighter for four days during his month-long training trip to the United States.
Faisal Yamani is already an experienced firefighter from his work as an Emergency Response Technician at the TASNEE Petrochemical Complex in Jubail City. He's also already had a taste of not just American fire training but Texas' in particular from Mike Simmons' training trips to the Middle East.
Through the kingdom's ongoing business agreements with the United States, companies there are assimilating the American National Fire Protection Association standards, explained Simmons, KFD assistant chief. Most recently, he accompanied his father (another Michael Simmons) to Saudi Arabia in December to train Tasnee employees in ropes rescue and hazardous materials procedures.
Yamani arrived in Texas May 17 for a month's training in the Dallas area (the elder Simmons owns the North Texas Fire Academy in Rockwall). The 38-year-old spent Thursday afternoon working with KFD Captain Jason Chamblee, Driver Jason Young and Firefighter Blake Barker at the department's training house near the city's wastewater treatment plant.
From initial fire attack to search and rescue techniques, Yamani knows his business, Chamblee said, "He did awesome."
Rather than standard firefighting skills, the key elements of this month's trip are leadership techniques and incident management.
"They can see how we operate and what we do," Simmons explained, application of the NFPA codes and standards.
The American procedures are the future of Saudi Arabian firefighting, Yamani said.
"We learn the teamwork," he explained, particularly interested in understanding Kilgore's incident command system. "The leadership here is different."
Yamani is second-in-command to Tasnee Fire Chief Salah Nagmoosh, a veteran North Texas Fire Academy trainee who's been singing the praises of American firefighters and their on-scene organization. According to Yamani, one of the principle aspects of his job is to coordinate the ERT department with Nagmoosh -- the ERT personnel are typically chemical operators first and from scheduling firefighters to incident deployment and attack strategies, the Tasnee firefighting chiefs are honing their command skills for when they need to call up the department.
"You have a shortcut system," he said, praising KFDs standard response procedures. "I will try to take the same system back."
Copyright 2014 - Kilgore News Herald, Texas
