Above is a comment that one of my instructors said to us during a class and I have never forgot it. What he was saying is that, you can practice doing something all you want, but if you're not doing it correctly, the practice is pointless. This is something I try to remember every time I teach a class. Throughout the years I have obtained a good amount of certifications through the State Fire Academy. One of those is Fire Service Instructor-1, meaning I can teach classes in which I am certified in myself. It was an interesting class, not really covering the fire service, but audience behavior, lesson plans, and presentation. People laugh when I tell them my "mid-term" was a 5 minute presentation on the correct way to set a dinner table, and my ten minute final was about the usage of overhead transparencies. Luckily, I was allowed to use an overhead projector, or it would have been a fun time trying to present that lesson plan....
This was back around 1999 I believe, and over the years, I taught small classes here and there for my department, as well as some neighboring departments, but what I really wanted to do was a Firefighter 1 class. This is the class that teaches the basics, and the class that everyone seems to have the most fun being in because it has a lot of hands-on training. After I had met my ex-wife, I had married and moved out of town, and unfortunately had to resign Putnam Fire and my position of lieutenant. I never really got back into the fire service, other than a brief stint out in a department in Windham, CT., but it didn't feel right, and I was busy with work and family. After the divorce, I had moved back to town, rejoined the Putnam Fire Department, and was back in as a firefighter in Ladder Co. My friend Shawn had also obtained the certification as Fire Service Instructor, and we started discussing about teaching a FF-I class in the Fall of 2005. I was excited that finally I was going to teach a class that I had once loved and always wanted to teach. FF-I is the basics, it is the NFPA(National Fire Protection Association) standard for professional qualifications as a firefighter, meaning, it is the minimum that a firefighter should know, who plans on doing any kind of interior structural firefighting. Plain language, if you want to go inside a burning building, it is recommended by NFPA, and OSHA that you have this certification. Obviously, with a majority of the departments across the nation being volunteer, with limited schedules, there are some members out there that have a hard time finding a class schedule to fit theirs, but they are strongly urged to get certified as soon as possible. In the mean time they are usually trained by department officers in other basics, through department trainings, etc.
Anyways, I apologize for rambling off. So Shawn and myself decide to start it in Sept. of 2005 and running Tuesdays and Thursdays for class time, and occasional Saturdays for more hands on training. We decide to go and post it on the Quinebaug Valley dispatch website discussion board, and the interest was overwhelming. It went from 20 student slots, to 30, to can we do a favor and fit a couple in from this department, and that department. We finally said no, and did a tally and found we had 42, yes that's right, 42 students on the list. This is a huge class, we didn't have room in our meeting room to fit 42 students!! Luckily, when class started we were down to 38 students, which was tight in the room, but manageable. So it started, department organization, personal protective equipment, self contained breathing apparatus, fire behavior, fire suppression, ground ladders, ropes & knots, forcible entry, salvage and overhaul, etc., etc., etc. Finally, in early November, the part that everyone had been looking for..... the "Live Burn." Some classes choose to go to the Academy at Windsor Locks, some choose to go to the "burn house" in Willimantic at the Eastern CT Fire Academy, but the Willimantic building was out of service, and the Windsor Locks burn building is very expensive to rent. It is rather time consuming to prepare a local abandoned house to have a live burn, so we had a friend and fellow instructor contact Auburn, MA fire department training division. They have an outstanding burn building off of Route 12 in Auburn at one of their sub-stations, so we booked it. It was a great day, and a great class over the few months, with a few problems encountered, but no one got hurt, and when it was all said and done, everyone passed the state practical exam, and everyone passed the state written exam, with the exception of one. Again, as I said before in a previous post, I met a great bunch of guys, at a class, that I consider good friends or acquaintances. I know they were trained the right way, the NFPA standard way, and now it's up to them to continue to practice it, the right way, because perfect practice-makes perfect.......
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