SAN DIEGO—No one ever said firefighting was easy, so why should training be any different.
That’s the premise Tom Johnson and John Spera of the Aurora, CO, Fire Department shared with attendees of a class they presented at Firehouse World 2017. Johnson, a lieutenant with the department and Spera, a fire medic with the same department, titled their presentation: “Decision Making under Stress: Training in a Fog of War.”
They advocate realistic fire service training, including physical exertion, distractions (like loud music during a patient exam) and working in full turnout gear.
“The fog of war is working in a realm of uncertainty,” Spera said, adding that confusion and incomplete information changes a firefighter’s perspective on reality. “If we train in an environment that is overwhelming, we’ll know how to handle it when it actually happens.”
To achieve that sense of being overwhelmed, Spera said he tries to elevate the heart rates of his trainees with physical exercise, hysterical actors approaching them, loud noises and other distractions. Then, the trainees are asked to respond to scenarios and answer questions, sometimes ones that should be known by rote memorization.
“You would be surprised at how much difficulty firefighters and even officers will have with simple things they should know,” Johnson said.
Johnson said it’s not possible to truly recreate confusion and the exertion firefighters experience on the emergency scene, but the physiological effect can be created by fatiguing the body and mind using exercise.
“We have our Super Bowl once every six months and we’ve got to be ready,” Johnson said.
Spera said physical and mental training will prepare firefighters for their “finest hour” when they are fully prepared to do their jobs and save lives and property. He said firefighters and responders have to get over their fear of failing in training and especially at the scene.
“We signed up to be there at our best on their worse day,” Spera said. “Our fear of being there has to be overcome. You have to show up and do your job. We have to think, adapt and overcome. That’s the best part of our job. We love figuring out problems.”
Preplanning buildings and scenarios can help build confidence and help keep things organized, but there are limits, Spera said.
“It’s like a script, ready to be played, but it could have holes in it and unexpected things are going to happen,” Spera said. “That’s when we’re going to be asked to think on our feet and we could become overwhelmed.”
Firefighters who have trained in a method that helps them cope with the unknown and to think on their feet will be better prepared to handle things as they come up.
“If you have been there 20, 30, 40 times under those conditions, you’ll respond better,” Spera said.
Johnson said most firefighters and fire departments train in the comfort zone and they need to push that comfort zone out as far as possible to avoid other areas of that training circle like panic.
“Practice how you play,” Johnson said. “Have you forced a door when you are out of breath, or someone is behind it yelling for help? Or how about a crazy lady who comes up and says her cats are in that building? You have to build surprises into your training. They can’t know what to expect.
Johnson said putting firefighters in challenging training (not only physically but mentally) will only help them perform better when the real thing happens.
Spera said failing in training is not only acceptable it should be expected so firefighters will build confidence when they get it right and they’ll recognize better and new ways to handle situations when they arise in real life.
Spera was the first fire medic on the first engine on the scene of the horrific Aurora movie theater shooting where a gunman hit 70 moviegoers. That was an overwhelming scene, but his training helped him with the situation.
Triage didn’t work well because when people are being shot at or had been shot at, they’re not too willing to do what people tell them to do. Spera said that situation was clearly a time where he and his crew were overwhelmed as there were 70 people exiting the building asking for help and he had five red victims at his feet who needed surgeons.
He said it’s difficult to replicate that kind of intensity and recreate the fear and the elevated responder vital signs, but any attempt to move toward that realism helps prepare the responder for the unthinkable.
Johnson said physical fitness is also important to make sure responders are fit to fight. As a competitive sportsman in school and college, he said he introduce a clock into his physical fitness training and it caused consternation in his ranks. They all thought there were minimum times they had to beat or suffer consequences. Soon, the competitive nature of firefighters kicked in and they were making improvements to beat their own times, or that of their colleagues.
“At first, people lost their minds,” Johnson said of the clock in training. Now, they have developed the ultimate firefighter challenge and have a plaque at their training facility with the names of everyone who successfully completes it. Now, all the firefighters are clamoring for an opportunity to complete the challenge.
“Ride the coattails of that competition,” Johnson said. “It’s good. You should be able to run around in your gear, on air and not get hurt.” He said firefighters should be able to drag props, throw ladders and hose and all the other tasks firefighters are expected to perform routinely.
Spera said it becomes a mindset that firefighters want to become the best firefighters they can.
“Because that’s what I said I was going to do,” Spera said. “It’s not about us, or our feelings.” He said for his shift, his department owns him and he has an obligation to give his best and advance to that next level of training for lots of reasons.
“I want to go back to my family at the end of my shift,” Spera said.
