Conducting Regular Training at your Fire Station

by Jon Seastone

Jon is a structural and wildland firefighter with the Denver Fire Department, Colorado. Jon has been training with AFM since 2017 in Kenya.

Company training is of vital importance to fire crews. Small problems often happen during fire calls and company training can help to minimize those problems and prevent small problems from becoming big problems. Laziness and complacency is a recipe for disaster when an overwhelming emergency call rears its ugly head. Company training also develops camaraderie betweens firefighters and builds teamwork. Because firefighters took the time to train prior to arriving at a fire scene, fire companies will have a sense of what their fellow crew members will do, sometimes without the need to verbally communicate the actions. Firefighters who regularly train together feel like they can “read each other’s minds” during incidents because drilling causes a team to move as one force. For these reasons, daily company drills and training is of vital importance.

Company training does not have to be a grueling or extensive process. It can be as simple as taking one item off the truck and becoming familiar with it or driving around your response district and familiarizing the company with buildings and target hazards. Being deliberate and disciplined in doing daily training becomes a habit and continuously develops knowledge within a firehouse.

When firefighters are sleep deprived, fatigued, hungry or distracted by other parts of our life, we must depend on our training as a foundation to help push through when our mind may not be operating at maximum levels. By running through scenarios and putting hands on equipment, we develop muscle memory that will take over in times of stress. We can then build on these scenarios and find additional “outside the box” scenarios or possible plans “B” and “C” if plan A fails.

During company drilling equipment is taken out and checked, and used for training, then cleaned and put back in service. Often, problems with the equipment may be discovered and can be resolved prior to an incident. It is best to immediately remove damaged or non working equipment from service till the issue has been resolved or the equipment has been repaired. It’s a very empty feeling to be in the middle of an emergency call and have an equipment fail that might have been discovered had the equipment been used for training. 

Company training and drilling require intentionality. Every firefighter can step up and come up with training to pass onto others. Senior firefighters need to be deliberate about training with younger, less experienced firefighters. These more senior members can pass on stories and experiences that are invaluable in giving younger firefighters the knowledge of past calls and experiences that they can use as preparation for future emergencies that they might encounter. Senior firefighters are the leaders within the firehouse that can encourage others to take the reigns and pass along knowledge thereby making the fire service better in the future. The best thing a senior firefighter can do when faced with a question or scenario is be humble enough to say,”I don’t have an answer, but let’s try to figure it out together.”  They can lead by example by being the hardest workers in the firehouse.

The fire service is built on “never stop learning” mentality. It does not necessarily mean that departments must reinvent the wheel; but instead build on previous foundations and find new ways to accomplish tasks. The responsibility does not always fall on the chief or upper management. Although the Chief does have some culpability when it comes to training, training and drilling has been and will continue to start at the lowest level of the fire service, in other words with the firefighters.  

Here are some examples of drills/training that firefighters can do in their own area:

• Practice rescuing each other using drags and carries. What will you do if you have to rescue each other out of a building or a window? What if you have rescued a civilian in the same ways?

• Have a discussion about the types of buildings within your response areas. What are some target hazards or places that could be exceptionally dangerous for firefighters and how will you respond to those hazards? Discuss and plan possible responses within your company.

• If you carry ropes on your truck, pull those off and tie knots with each other. Teach each other useful knots that you know but maybe the firefighter next to you might not. When you are done, check the rope for damage.

• Practice throwing ladders to various buildings and techniques for taking victims down the ladder.

• Practice searching for people or following a hose pipe in the firehouse while blindfolded to use your other senses in case you can’t see during a fire.

• Watch videos of firefighter training from all over the world and then try it yourself to see if it works for you. 

These are only a few examples. What are your ideas?   Add your ideas to the AFM networking group because we can all learn from each other!

Recommendations to Keep Your Workplace Safer During the COVID-19 Pandemic

by: Brad Banz- Retired Fire Chief, Colwich Fire Dept., Retired Captain Wichita Fire Dept.

Greetings! I pray that everyone is doing ok right now.  I would like to share some ideas on what first responders should be doing around their workplaces to keep themselves safer from COVID-19.  Although things are starting to relax in some areas, this doesn’t mean we can let down our guard, as the virus has not suddenly left and will continue to be a part of our lives for some time to come.  Many first responders live with each for an extended period of time, especially firefighters.  That’s why it’s so important that we do what we can to keep from sharing COVID-19 if one of us is unfortunate enough to contract it.  Some of the things I’m about to share may seem basic -  and I am sure many of you are already following many of the ideas.  The purpose of this article is to stimulate thinking and help you as responders to come up with some new ideas if you haven’t thought of them.  Please feel free to share other ideas in your response as well.

Probably one of the easiest things we can do is handwashing.  Everyone should wash their hands thoroughly with soap and water for at least 20 seconds.  Don’t use the same bar of soap and don’t share the same towel to dry with.  Because first responders make frequent contact with the public, they should also wash their hands after contacting the public.  If possible, keep hand sanitizer on your vehicles.  

Next, lets discuss habits in our quarters.  The first item I would like to discuss is social distancing.  This may be the hardest for firefighters to comply with, because most firefighters love to interact socially.   We need to take steps to minimize the number of firefighters in each space so as to comply with social distancing requirements.  The solution to this would be to move activities to a larger area, outdoors perhaps.  Keeping our quarters clean and sanitary should also be important – washing bedding and towels frequently.  Take the time to clean and sanitize areas, especially surfaces with a disinfectant solution at least once a day, and preferably more.  This should occur in the bedrooms, toilet facilities, showers, kitchen, common areas and officer.  Finally, keep contaminated PPE away from common crew areas such as sleeping and eating areas and decontaminate it as soon as possible after responding to a medical emergency.

Although we are public servants and need to make ourselves accessible to the public, in these times we also have to be careful to protect ourselves, while still providing some type of public access.  We must make it clear to the public that any visits to a fire brigade/fire department facility must be for business or emergency purposes only.  The members of the public who are visiting must be required to wear a mask or be issued one upon entering.  Only a limited number of visitors should be allowed into the facility, and then only to a restricted area. 

Finally, training is one of the most important things that firefighters do.  Reading these posts may be a part of your training.  Sometimes our hands on training requires us to do things that put us into situations that break social distancing guidelines.  Station officers and chiefs, we know how important it is to have good, comprehensive training for your crews.  Right now, however, please try to plan your training so that your firefighters are doing activities which won’t compromise their health.  There are still plenty of drills which can be conducted that don’t require your firefighters to be in close proximity to one another.  

    To summarize, we started off by discussing a basic but simple concept:  handwashing.  Next we talked about some things we could do in our quarters to help keep them cleaner.  Restricting public access is important, and finally we wrapped up by making suggestions for changing training requirements.  As I stated, many of these things may be already implemented by you already.  Please feel free to share ideas you have with the group.

AFM's opportunity to serve in Ghana

March 2020 was a month of growth for AFM!   We were privileged to go to Ghana to work with Medical Ambassadors International (MAI) and to begin exploring partnerships with the Ghana National Fire Service.   

With MAI – we participated as trainers in their program at the Africa Internship Center in the North Tongu District.   For five weeks, individuals representing ministries from all of West Africa participated in Community Health Education (CHE) internships and AFM was asked to provide a 2-day workshop on our CHE community fire prevention and sensitization programs.  

There were ministry leaders from:  Togo, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Benin, Liberia, and Cape Verde.   80% of those leaders had had a traumatic experience with fire in their lifetime, many of them had more than one traumatic experience.  We had the privilege of training the them in basic fire safety and response with our Fire Safety curriculum 

These leaders are now also trained trainers of our curriculum and are prepared to take the lessons out into their communities.    We look forward to hearing stories of changed lives in West Africa!

We were able to provide training to 40 firefighters in the North Tongu District and West Ada District and were able to collaborate with fire service leadership in Winneba, Ghana and at the National Fire and Training School.    We were also honored to meet with National Chief Fire Officer Edwin Ekow Blankson.  Chief Blankson explained the structure and current status of the fire service in Ghana and we had a highly productive discussion of how AFM can help to empower, support, train and encourage the Ghana National Fire Service.   

The fire service in Ghana has over 7500 firefighters, 200 fire stations and a large well-organized fire service and training academy.  However they lack ongoing firefighter development training and their personal protective equipment (PPE) is very scarce.   AFM is working to engage the Ghanaian fire trainers in advancing their knowledge allowing them to be able to expand the trainings that the firefighters receive as well as expanding the availability of PPE in Ghana. 

Plans for future work in Ghana are ongoing even during this time of pandemic shutdown and uncertainly.  We look forward to being able to fully implement plans for PPE and training support when travel is once again safe.  

Recommendations for First Responders Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Africa and other Developing Nations

by: Brad Banz- Retired Fire Chief, Colwich Fire Dept., Retired Captain Wichita Fire Dept.

Last November when I was in Kenya with Africa Fire Mission, I delivered training on responding to mass casualty incidents and response to biological and explosives terrorism incidents.  Who knew that only a few short months later that we would be dealing with a pandemic situation that in many ways parallels what we might expect in a biological incident.  I am not an expert on COVID-19, I don’t think anyone is, it is a rapidly changing situation.  I would like to try my best to offer a few suggestions that may help deal with this crisis.    I actually have several things to discuss, so let’s get started.

SYMPTOMS: 

The first thing we need to talk about are the symptoms of COVID-19, or the Coronavirus, as some are calling it.  The most common symptoms are a high fever, dry cough and tiredness.  Severe cases will develop into difficulty breathing, usually some type of pneumonia.  There are certain groups of people that should be protected as they are at a higher risk of contracting the disease and developing more severe symptoms.  High risk groups include the elderly, those with heart conditions, high blood pressure and diabetics. Also, anyone with already weakened immune systems are at high risk.

PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT (PPE):

COVID-19 can be spread very easily.  It is important that you protect yourselves.  One of the most basic things you can do is hand washing.  Use hand sanitizer often and hand washing often.  Wash your hands for 20 seconds using soap and clean water.  My other safety concern for all providers is wearing protective equipment.  I know for many of you it will be a struggle.  Even in the US there is a shortage of proper PPE.  In this regard, I have been praying for all of our responders to be provided with what they need. PPE necessary to protect you and it can help to protect in spreading COVID-19 to other patients.  Please wear disposable gloves, eye protection (a face shield would be even better) and if possible an N95 mask.  These are at the very least.  If you have a patient that is coughing and especially if you don’t have the N95 masks or adequate protection for yourself, at least try to place a regular dust mask, an oxygen mask if you have one, or have them hold something over their mouth to keep their cough contained.  If you have access to gowns, please dawn them as well.  Firefighters, if you are responding and you have a patient with COVID-19 symptoms, wear your PPE, including your breathing apparatus if you don’t have a proper mask.  Firefighter PPE should be properly decontaminated at the end of the incident.   If you do not have access to PPE as a responder, consider the risk and the ways that you can protect yourself as best as possible – for instance, change your clothes after responding to the incident, wash contaminated clothing and take a hot shower as soon as possible.

TRIAGE:

Triage is going to become an important part of managing patients as we work our way through this crisis.  You will not only be doing triage in the community on emergency scenes, but as the number of patients increase and resources become limited at the hospitals, triage will be more important there as well.  Proper patient assessment and triage in the COVID-19 crisis is also essential to help keep COVID-19 patients isolated from other patients and hopefully keep the disease from spreading.  For those workers who are assisting in the hospital setting, it is essential to establish triage on the very front end of the emergency department or hospital entrance.  This is important so as to be able to triage and isolate potential COVID-19 patients away from other patients as soon as possible.  EMS workers who are delivering patients in from the streets by ambulance, if you have a patient that is exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19, please take all safety precautions and advise the emergency department on arrival of a suspected COVID-19 patient so they can take proper precautions with PPE and isolate the patient.  

Concerning triage priorities, please use normal triage priorities for all medical patients, here is a quick review of color coded triage priorities:

·       black is obvious deceased or in a mass casualty incident a victim who is not breathing who is declared deceased because of resources. Remember in normal situations when you have the resources (manpower) you may attempt resuscitation on a non-breathing patient. If you don’t have resources they are to be triaged black.  

·       blue is pulseless and not breathing but is not used in mass casualty incidents; 

·       red is for critical patients who are suffering from potential life threatening illness or injury and is usually indicated by airway, breathing or circulatory distress; 

·       yellow patients are patients with potentially serious medical or trauma, but who are stable and can be delayed but still need care at the emergency room.  

·       green patients are non-life threatening emergencies.  

A NOTE TO EMERGENCY MANAGERS:

You are a big part in helping out with getting through this crisis.  If not, Fire or EMS managers may have to take dual roles.  Emergency managers, it is your role to make sure that everyone works together with the end goals being to stop the crisis from getting bigger and taking care of who are sick.  Emergency managers you will need to appoint a team to coordinate all that is involved.  One of the biggest concerns that you will have as the situation grows is medical professionals.  You must coordinate with the medical facilities and the government to make sure that you have proper staffing and that they are in the right places.  The same goes with ambulances.  You must work with the ambulance services to coordinate their care levels and transport destinations so hospitals aren’t overloaded.  What facilities do you have available and what is their care level?  Will you need to need to make temporary facilities for the overflow or for isolation?  Is an option to make temporary facilities near informal settlements?  Logistics is a big issue.  You have to make sure that everyone has the supplies and equipment that they need.  Consider how you will integrate with all levels of government, private industry.  Think about coordinating with agencies such as the Red Cross, the UN, local community groups, community leaders and NGOs.  

COMMUNITY SENSITIZATION: 

Community involvement is of utmost importance.  Africa Fire Mission has been deeply involved in promoting community sensitization through the fire service. Right now, the fire service and EMS should be in the community providing accurate information on COVID-19. While maintaining social distancing and adhering to emergency rules in place.  Provide information about symptoms, and information about how to keep the disease from spreading.  Information that can be helpful is such things as:

·       Handwashing often and for 20 seconds at a time with soap and water or using hand sanitizer.

·       Cover your cough.  

·       Social Distancing: Keeping a distance of at least 2 meters from each other whenever possible. 

·       If you have symptoms, do not go to work.  People in risk groups (mentioned above)  should stay away from others.

·       If someone in your home has been diagnosed, everyone living in the home should stay at home.

·       Avoid large groups as much as possible.  

I know that some of these things may be extremely difficult to do for many community members.  I know that water costs money.  Perhaps you can enlist community organizations to help pay for water and soap so that families can afford to wash. 

SUMMARY:

To summarize we talked about symptoms and risk groups, first responder safety, triage of both COVID-19 patients and medical patients in general, emergency management and involving the community.  

First responders, a lot of responsibility is going to be on you during this pandemic.  At Africa Fire Mission, we want to provide you will accurate and realistic information and response strategies based on what your situation might be on the ground.   Hopefully I’ve passed on some information that may be useful.  We are all still learning as we go.

Winneba, Ghana July 2019

In collaboration with Charlottesville, Virginia Sister Cities program and Fire Department, AFM was able to donate personal protective equipment to Winneba, Ghana’s fire department. AFM is looking for opportunities to further our work in Ghana in 2020 in collaboration with the fire service and Medical Ambassador’s International.