This Article was published in the October Issue of FIRESCUE INTERACTIVE Magazine

e-mail Chief Montagna

We all have a unique or oddball building in our district. It is the building that does not fit our standard operating procedures. It is the building that, because of construction, renovations or occupancy, presents us with serious firefighting problems. You are aware of the building and have thought about how you would attack a fire in it and you have trained the firefighters that work with you, on these tactics. The problem is solved, right?

Not necessarily. Are you lucky enough to always have the same firefighters working with you? I'm not. My firefighters regularly swap tours giving me a constant stream of firefighters who may not have been trained in what I want them to do if we get a fire in our oddball buildings. In addition, on a day-to-day basis, we can get firefighters from anywhere in the city detailed to the company to make up for a temporary manpower shortage. We also have officers working in our fire companies just for one tour as they rotate from firehouse to firehouse. In short, there is usually someone working in one of my fire companies that is not at all familiar with my oddball buildings. The question is, how do I get and keep everyone on the same page with respect to tactics in these buildings?

In my district, I have a number of buildings that are not the same height in the front as they are in the rear. These buildings can be two or three stories in the front and three or four stories in the rear. This condition creates a communication problem if the difference is not recognized and compensated for early in the operation. These buildings gave us a quite a bit of trouble at fires because of the height difference and because of several other oddball features they shared. However, after extensive drilling on the problems, fires in these buildings gave us much less of a problem. So it seemed that frequent drills solved my problem. Not so.

Once everyone was trained, I thought that I could concentrate on other problems and drill on other topics, but constant review was needed to keep the subject fresh in the firefighters minds. In addition, the new, untrained, firefighters and officers that drifted in and out of my companies on a daily basis necessitated that the training be ongoing. I could not, however, train exclusively on these buildings. There were numerous other training needs that begged attention. Surprisingly, I found a solution in my firehouse computer.

A friend, Larry Petrillo of Laur-Chris Productions, suggested that I use the Microsoft PowerPoint program on the firehouse computer to create a training program that could be used at a company drill as well as an individual training aide. He was already using the program to create training presentations for various fire departments. After viewing several of his presentations, I was enthusiastically in agreement and I embarked on a crusade to learn how to create PowerPoint presentations.

Communicating Expectations
How PowerPoint Presentations Help Keep Crews On the Same Page

Admittedly, I needed help to get started. I was computer literate, but I had not played with this program previously. I watched my friend as he worked creating training programs and played with the program myself when I had time. I learned how to make attractive backgrounds and what color and size to make the text so that it was easily read. After some experimenting with the simple drawing tools included in the program, I made schematic drawings of the buildings that showed the height difference. Then I discovered digital photography.

While drawings and text illustrated some of the problems these buildings presented, photos did the job much better. My friend had a scanner, and using it, I inserted photos into my presentation and was able to show actual pictures of the front and rear of the buildings. Pictures of the roof enabled firefighters to see the layout of the roof before they had to operate on it in smoke. When I received a digital camera as a gift, the whole process of inserting photos became much simpler. I did not have to develop the photos, then scan them in and then transport them to my work computer on floppy disks, zip drives or home burnt CD's. I could now download the photos directly into the computer from the camera. Since I am not a photographer, the photos were not always perfect. A photo-editing program, however, allowed me to cut, crop and change the color and lighting of the photos. It even let me put realistic fire and smoke into photos.

The firefighters liked these new computer presentations. They were used to watching TV and learning from videos. Computer training fit right into their ninety's lifestyles. It was an attention getter. Using photos of the actual buildings gave the training program a heightened sense of relevance.

It was now possible for a new firefighter or a detailed officer to sit down at the computer and review the program by himself in about 20 minutes, freeing up our scheduled training time for other topics. The text included in the presentation along with the photos and drawings got the intended message across to the firefighter or officer as he clicked his way through the presentation. Another use for this technology is to compile a slide show of your vacant and other dangerous buildings that could be quickly reviewed by firefighter or officer or used at a company drill. Simple text descriptions can be added to the photos giving the address and describing each buildings hazards. This pictorial of hazardous buildings is a quick and dirty way to review the buildings in your district that require exterior operations because of inherent hazards.

I am not saying that you will be able to sit down, cold, and put together a good looking and effective presentation on your first attempt. I was not able to; I needed help. You, however, probably have a computer guru in your firehouse that could guide you over the rough spots of creating a presentation or even do all of the computer work for you. All you would have to do is decide what text you want included into your presentation, take the accompanying photos and give them to your guru. If you were adventurous and wanted to do the work yourself, with a little help you too could turn out effective presentations. All it would take is time and effort. The results, a well-trained, safer firefighting force, are well worth the small investment of time you make.