Students gain a realistic understanding of the hazards and difficulties of the fireground. The focus is on having students experience a firefighting environment that is as close as possible to firegrounds in their jurisdictions. Too often, firefighters are trained in empty burn buildings with scant furnishing in situations with high heat, zero visibility, and no water flow. This class allows firefighters to operate in a realistically simulated fire environment while flowing water where they are taught skills and lessons learned from experienced instructors. Students will progress through six skills stations in the morning and gain a basic understanding of how to perform those skills. In the afternoon, they will put the skills into practice in four practical scenarios with continually increasing degrees of stress. The scenarios progress from a normal room to get a basic understanding of the skills to zero visibility for the second evolution, to zero visibility and audio distractions including radio traffic through speakers in the third evolution, to the addition of strobe lights in the fourth evolution. Burn barrels on the outside provide the smell of fire. The goal is to solidify students’ skills and experience through stress inoculation.
