Free Training, Valuable Lessons Come From Debriefing

Most departments spend some time talking about training evolutions and calls at their conclusion. Sometimes it’s as simple as a tailboard talk after the call or just sitting in rehab talking after training. This can be productive sometimes but, do people get as much out of these as a debriefing session? Does your department use debriefing? How does your department provide feedback for calls and training to assist in assessing effectiveness? The easiest and most inexpensive way to provide this critical component is debriefing.

Before we discuss the benefit of debriefing there has to be an understanding of what it is. Debriefing refers to the conversational sessions that revolve around the sharing and examining of information after a specific event has taken place. These events can range from the run of the mill structure fire to the motor vehicle accident with entrapment. The important thing to remember is that the size and type of incident should not dictate the need for debriefing. Many departments have an SOG in place to provide a guide for when debriefing will occur. Anyone can call for a debriefing for any number of reasons. The incident commander for reasons related to operations, the safety officer for risk and safety issues, or any member of the company or crew for any reason to provide a better understanding of any incident aspect. The same applies to any post training exercise.

Successful Debriefing must have ground rules that may at times hard for firefighters to follow. These rules must be followed to provide an atmosphere of communications that can lead to learning and behavioral change. These rules are:

EVERYONE firefighters and officers alike must leave their feelings at the door. You cannot allow emotion to drive your discussion. Officers do not use this as an avenue to accuse people or state your opinion as gospel. Firefighters don’t take it personal all this is simply a means to look at how things were done and seek to understand was it done the best way not point a finger.

There must be a facilitator to keep things moving. Who fills this role will often be dictated by the size and type of incident. If it is a small debriefing the company officer can facilitate the discussion at the same time he participates. If this is a large scale or complex incident you may want to use a chief officer or outside person that was not directly involved. The debriefings that are held post training can be facilitated by the training staff, company officer or any designated person. Following training exercises assign different people to fill the role as facilitator this will allow folks to get comfortable with the process as well as build communication skills.

Allow everyone to talk. Give everyone involved the opportunity to answer questions and state opinions. Even if someone is incorrect let them be heard it is part of learning. Be respectful as you talk no screaming and yelling.

Do not go on defense. If someone questions something you did don’t automatically assume they are saying you did it wrong. There is no need to start pleading a case as to why you are right, state your opinion and let the discussion move. The facilitator should pick up on this defense and defuse it quickly in the interest of the discussion.

Don’t spend all your time on the negative. Many times people leave a debriefing feeling beat up. This happens because the entire time is spent on what went wrong. Spend some time on what was right, point out the areas where personnel preformed correctly and did strong work.


Let’s look at some basic tactics for debriefing. If you develop an agenda to serve as a guide it will keep your debriefing moving. It doesn’t have to be written or copied and passed out and if the discussion takes you in a different productive direction so be it. In order to keep your discussion straightforward use these questions for each identified issue:

What happened?

How did it happen?

What could be done different to improve the situation?

I like to use the following agenda (guide). This same one can be found in many of our trade magizines.

Good Observations: What was done right that can be done again in the same situation. This will set a positive tone for the session.

Operational Issues: This is the area that will take up most of your time as firefighters tend to lump all problems into operational issues. Examples of items for discussion here are, apparatus placement, resource management, timeliness, and command issues. There are many other items that can go in this area as well.

Safety Issues: What problems with safety can be identified, what risk was taken that may need reevaluation.

Additional Discussion: After all these areas have been discussed members may have thought of additional information to discuss.

Wrap it Up: Review the good points and the areas of consensus for needed improvement.  Last review the department SOP/SOG for that particular incident.

Remember this type of discussion can be a cheap valuable tool to teach, train and change behavior. It will give all members an opportunity to be heard and give input. It will built trust at the company level and fosters an environment of communication. Use this for response and for training as often as possible you will see improvement and even a positive impact on morale.

Don’t Just be a Firefighter: Take Responsibility for Your Training

I was listening to a few firefighters talk the other day and they were fussing about the training their department was providing or not providing. One guy asked the other if he had seen the catalog of courses for the fire academy this quarter. Firefighter "A" said "it's not my responsibility to train off duty, if I need it they have to provide it." This set me back a little bit; I couldn't understand why someone would feel that way. The more I listened to them; Firefighter B told A that he was going to start some advanced courses and maybe even some officer level and instructor courses. Firefighter B laughed and said "we don't need that we are "just firefighters."

As soon I as heard this I was taken back to an exchange that occurred between one of my fire service hero's and I. I was an 18-year-old volunteer firefighter attending a fire school sponsored by one of the local counties and was taking a truck company operations course. I was just out of basic fire training and felt bigger than life. I felt like I knew it all. The instructor entered the room with a big smile on his face and said "good morning folks. I hope everyone is ready to have fun and learn a lot." Next he introduced himself. "I am Capt. Matt Jackson with the Charleston, WV, Fire Department and I am here because this is the greatest job ever."

Then he instructed us to go around the room and introduce ourselves and identify our department, our position and why we where there. I was sitting in a seat that made me fourth from the last so I got to hear most of the class introduce themselves. For whatever reason when it was my turn I stood up and said, "my name is Chris and I am just a firefighter." I didn't even state my department like I was supposed to and I just sat down. Capt. Jackson said, "excuse me son come up here and stand with me."

I was scared to death at this point, standing there listening to the last few introductions. When the last person was finished he turned to me and said let's try this again, re-introduce yourself. Did I take this opportunity to shine and do it right? No, I did the exact same thing again my name is Chris and I am "just a firefighter." I remember Matt looked dead in my eyes and said there is no such thing as just a fireman. He went on to say that every job on the fireground was as important as the next and without each firefighter from chief to rookie we couldn't blow out a match. He then told me the reason I was there was there was to learn and take responsibility for my own training. He shook my hand and told me and the rest of the class that next to safety there is nothing more important a firefighter can do than take responsibility for their training. That statement has stuck with me all these years.

Do you take responsibility for your training? Can you think of ways you can be more responsible for your training? Face it, in today's fire service you cannot get everything you need with stock department training. Training officers are so busy trying to meet the needs dictated by various federal, state and local government agencies they run out of time for much needed individual training. Even those training officers that prepare packets that are given to company officers to complete with staff can't get it all done sometimes. This is not to say your training department isn't doing its job or is inadequate, it simply means that with our call loads and other work there isn't enough time.

There are several things you can do to take responsibility for your training. While some will require a little extra work on your part, most are very common sense items that are easy to incorporate in your day-to-day schedule.

Be prepared: look at what your training division has scheduled for your company ahead of time. If you look at the subject matter you can take time on your own to read the department related SOGs and be prepared. You can look back and review the basic skills involved in what you will be doing so that you can be ready to perform. A little preparedness can go a long way and make training easier on you and the rest of the company. Training officers, this means that you have to schedule in advance. Don't make the officers and firefighters track you down to ask what is planned on that day. Put out your schedule in advance so they can prepare.

Actively participate: When it is time to train there is nothing worse than personnel standing around waiting to be told everything that needs to happen. When the instructor, training officer, company officer or whoever is leading the session gives instruction, dive in and do work.

Read: each time you complete big training courses such as Fire I, Hazardous Materials Operations, or any similar course you leave with the student manuals. We have many of these books lying around that we wonder should I keep these. The answer is easy. Read these books often to review skills or procedures to ensure we are current. Concentrate on those that you do not do often or topics that have been of recent interest to your department in some fashion. Go to the chapter objectives and review questions and see if you can still answer the questions as well or better than you did when you went to the class. If you can't, you have created a reading list. You do not have to read every day or even every week. Set a goal for yourself: one hour, two hours whatever you can afford in your schedule and stick to it. Other great sources for reading include trade magazines. Fire and EMS both have a wealth of these publications available to the service.

Use the Internet: the Internet provides many opportunities for firefighters to train. An example includes the FEMA EMI web site. Some of these courses can even be used for continuing education credits and in college courses. Subscribe to various blog sites and fire service-based web pages. These sites can provide videos to watch related to equipment, skills and critiques from calls around the country that we can learn a great deal from. They can also provide articles based of research done nationally or locally that can be beneficial.

Go to the NIOSH Firefighter Fatality Investigation and Prevention Program web site and read the reports from incidents that have had a bad outcome. When you read these, ask yourself "how can I prevent these things from happening to me or my crew." Use all of this information to be proactive to a situation and not reactive after something has already happened.

Attend offered courses: This is an area that can cause contention with some firefighters because they often do not get paid to go to courses away from the department. Some firefighters feel that if they do not get paid, they should not go. You have to ask yourself if this is taking responsibility for your training only you can answer this question. All fire departments have access to this type of training at some level. Go to your training officer or your chief and find out how to get to these programs. Most states have a fire academy or state agency that manages this training. Look at the listed courses and see what is out there. Choose the courses that will help you advance through the fire service in the way that you want to. You can choose advanced firefighter courses if you are new to the service or take instructor level courses if you want to move into training other fire and EMS providers. Attend the officer level courses if you want to be a fire officer at some point or if you just want to understand more about the responsibility officers have.

All of these seem to be very common sense things to do and they are. However you choose to take responsibility for your training is fine, just do something. Try to challenge yourself to always find new ways to train and better yourself. Train often and never be "just a firefighter".

Firefighter Training - Keep It Fresh

               Remember when you were in school, maybe in math class and you felt the seat get so uncomfortable on your behind? Remember when the words that the teacher would say began to run together and you did not hear another word that was said.  This is just how we had to learn it, some old guy up front in his shirt and tie spitting out the rules of math and testing us on them later.  How many of us had trouble learning because we were so board it wasn’t funny.  I think many of us would agree we had issues just like this that made learning hard, we just didn’t know it then.

                If you go to the local secondary school in your area today and stop by a math class you’re going to see some wired stuff.  You may find kids sitting in the floor, playing games, laughing and having fun.  The next thing you may see is the teacher down in the floor with them or playing the game and wearing jeans. In addition to these wired things you will find that these kids are scoring the same or better on the math tests that we did. Why has this happened? Because someone realized a long time ago that learning can be fun and fresh, and by keeping it that way people learn more.

                I would submit to you that today’s firefighter’s have the same sore rear-ends that we had in math class.  The problem is we continue to do the same old thing day in and day out with no change.  We need to freshen up our training to make it more enjoyable.  Your next question is how can this be done without great expense? The answer is simple understand the problem and involve your firefighters in the solutions.  If you go back to the basic principles of adult education two facts are well established. First, adults learn best when they can relate topic to experience.  Second, adults learn more when allowed to identify areas in which they need improvement.

            During informal discussions with firefighters boredom seems to be a biggest reason they do not get anything from their training.  For example, how often does training staff use the same old NFPA 1410 drill of the live burn, roll in and establish a water supply, put out the fire and roll it up.  The same scenarios done the same way every time serves to make firefighters complacent.   I would bet that if you stop and think about this type of drill in your area you would agree that often times it even involves the same scenarios and the same individuals preforming the same duties.  These types of drills can lead to boredom and inattention by our firefighters.

How do we prevent this type of training? How do we keep our men and women interested and hungry to train and learn? Simple- Keep it fresh! Take that multi-company drill that we do over and over and break it down by task. Simple techniques like job task analysis can be used to identify specific areas where the firefighter can improve. Take the time to evaluate the individual tasks used by firefighters to work a problem on the training ground.  As you observe the evolution identify which tasks are poorly preformed and plan training around those tasks.   Another method can be a simple handout asking staff to identify areas in which they feel a weakness related to fire ground operations, rescue operations and even specialty areas such as hazardous materials.  Challenge yourself day in and day out to come up with innovative ways to train for your department; this includes trainers, officers and firefighters all. Talk to your neighbors see what they are doing, find out what is working for other and adapt it to your use.  Be willing to exchange ideas with those same departments on a regular basis. But most important involve your people in the planning process.

By involving your personnel in the identification of their needs you can build stronger training programs with better outcomes.           

Firefighter Training: Slow it Down to Reduce Mistakes

I have a very high energy eight year old that studies and practices martial arts.  Recently he is preparing himself for his next belt examination and is having trouble with a few the techniques.  In an effort to help him through these problems I set him up a couple of privet lessons for one on one help.  Today I sat and observed one of these lessons and listened closely as the instructor worked with him.  Each time this young man would do the technique improperly the frustration would grow.  Finally the instructor asks him why he was messing these up so bad, and with reluctance he said because I'm going so fast. That was the right answer, next it was explained that if you want to do better, you must slow down and practice. 

I listened more and more and the simplest of things occurred to me.  This very simple principal of slowing down when you practice should be applied to the skills of firefighting. I would challenge you to stop and think about your last company drill. Did you as an individual really spend time with the material or did you hurry up quick get it done?  Did you examine the way you preformed the skill and look for problem areas? Did you use it as an opportunity to improve yourself?

Face it the basic skills involved in firefighting really haven't changed in years. I know doing the same drills over and over is tedious and boring. We have challenged departments to keep it new and keep people interested.  Now it’s time for the individual to commit to making the best of our training and improving our performance.

Slowing down when you drill will foster better practice.  This is true for firefighters and officers alike.  Look at the objective for the drill and ask yourself what is my role? Think about each task you must perform, play it out in your head then do the task.  Next ask yourself did I do my best, how can I improve?  Break your training apart before you run the drill and practice each task step by step. This could be any task, donning your SCBA, throwing ladders, setting your engine up for operation any task you may use.

For years the fire service has had a nasty habit of rushing.  In our entry level firefighter training we force people to do many tasks under a time constraint. For example you have one minute to put on your turn out gear another minute to don the SCBA.  If we drill, teach and train in this fashion we create an environment of rushing.  When people rush they make mistakes which in our business can be very costly.  I understand that time is important when there is a fire or other types of incident.  Take the extra seconds or minutes to be sure skills are done right, safe and efficient.  Walk don't run, when you run you increase the risk of accident and injury.

Remember practice often (1000 times is not enough), slow it down, learn from mistakes, and most of all be safe.