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Workshops, Saturday, April 26
8:30 a.m. - 12:00 noon
| Attack on the Pentagon: Tactical Considerations at the Impact Site |
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This presentation will cover the logistical problems associated with fire in an extremely large, five-story office building separated into five independent rings connected at the apex of each corridor, with fire on all five floors and the roof in three of the rings. The emphasis will be on gaining control of a chaotic situation and establishing a division command of a mass casualty event with a large fire and partial building collapse.
We will discuss the command process and personal accountability, and the logistics of establishing 600-foot handlines, major water supply issues, and complicated attack strategies. A brief history of the Pentagon and its construction will preface the discussion, as the construction of the building was critical to suppression efforts for the first ten hours and was directly responsible for the concentrated structural failure.
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Faculty: Captain Charles A. Gibbs has been in the fire service since 1967, beginning as a junior firefighter in Montgomery County, Maryland. He joined the Arlington County, Virginia, Fire Department in 1977 and is currently assigned to its training academy at the rank of acting battalion chief. He has taught building construction to the fire service for the past twelve years. On September 11, 2001, he was assigned as Division Commander on the impact side of the Pentagon.
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| I-Zone Firefighting for Engine Company Officers |
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When a fire sweeps through an area in the urban-wildland interface zone ("I-Zone"), it can easily threaten dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of structures within a few hours. The traditional approach we have learned to take with fully-involved structure fires -- giving them the full attention of several fire engines and a chief officer -- no longer work in such a scenario.
In this session, we will discuss tactics from the perspective of the engine company officer and the chief officer. We will identify structure triage goals for fires in the urban-wildland interface, identify the three categories of threatened structures, and discuss the factors that affect those triage decisions. We will also present methods for evaluating assignments and for prepping the yard and structure before fire approaches, and will give the officer different options for firefighting approaches and techniques. Most importantly, the workshops will stress safety as the first consideration when fighting fire in the I-Zone.
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Faculty: Marlene Heisey is a captain with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, assigned to a two-engine station on the Butte Ranger Unit. She has performed in numerous overhead positions on large fire incidents. Prior to her assignment to the Butte Ranger Unit, she spent four years in the department's training bureau. She began her fire service experience with eight years as a seasonal firefighter with CDF, starting in 1980. She achieved a permanent position in 1988, and was promoted to engineer in 1989. Captain Heisey holds a bachelor's degree in physical education, and numerous CDF and California State Fire Marshal's certifications.
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| Fireline Fitness: Are You Firefit? |
| This presentation is designed for wildland and structural firefighters, to promote the development of a consistent wellness and fitness program. We will put a special focus on women and the physical and mental challenges we face in maintaining fitness for firefighting. |
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Faculty: Bequi Livingston has been involved in wildland fire since 1979, when she was hired as part of the Young Adult Conservation Corps in New Mexico. (The hiring authorities thought from the spelling of her name that she was male). In 1980, she was hired as a seasonal firefighter, and later served on the Smokey Bear Hotshot Crew, was the first woman on the Sandia Helirapelling crew, and held many other fire prevention, fire management, and law enforcement positions over the years. She is currently Lead Field Coordinator for the Southwest Wildland Training Academy and assistant to the Regional Ground Safety Specialist. She is a certified personal fitness trainer and is involved nationally with the development of the Work Capacity Test for wildland firefighters.
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| Executive Coaching for Fire Service Leaders |
| Coaching is a process that inspires, guides, and safely reveals blind spots in our behavior that we are unable or unwilling to see for ourselves. It supports you as a leader in achieving optimal performance from the people you lead. Partipants will be introduced to the reasons coaching is important in the fire service; the elements of a coaching relationship; the premise, products, and flow of coaching; and practical applications of coaching in a fire service setting. The primary focus will be on the first steps in the coaching relationship. Students will become more skilled in fostering mutual respect and trust with the people they interact with on a daily basis. |
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Faculty: Kwame Cooper is a trainer and community consultant for the NFPA Center for High Risk Outreach, and the owner of Kwame Cooper Associates in Los Angeles, California.
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| Team Search: Why Mindlessly Grope When You Can Use Rope? |
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Come learn how to tie knots in the dark, and to use rope to make sure large areas of buildings get searched thoroughly. Participants in this hands-on workshop will practice using search rope to complete an organized search of complex layouts, and will learn to act in a team leader, searcher, and control person role in such searches. Limited to 20 participants.
Note that this session will take place off site. Plan on leaving the hotel by 7:30 a.m. Participants will need their own personal protective equipment (a limited amount may be available to borrow); SCBA is not required.
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Faculty: South Metro Fire/Rescue staff -- Lt. Troy Jackson, Lt. Tim Walker, Firefighter Sandi Jones
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Preparing for the Oral Interview (repeat of Friday morning session)
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This interactive workshop consists of a 10-minute videotaped oral interview for each participant, followed by an in-depth presentation of interview techniques, emphasizing proper conduct, appropriate communication, and a comfortable attitude. The presentation will include brief constructive segments of taped interviews, emphasizing positive reinforcement and identifying areas that need improvement. All of this will be followed by another videotaped interview for each participant so immediate improvements can be observed and discussed.
Each participant will also act as the interviewer, allowing her/him to experience the interview process from "the other side," which creates a better understanding of the process.
The workshop is designed to give participants immediate improvement in an area that is very subjective and difficult to quantify by education or etiquette. What is appropriate or "right" for each participant is reflected in their own judgment, rather than being dictated by rigid rules whose stressful memorization usually results in rigid behavior and stilted, unimaginative answers. Participants in the workshop quickly become bonded in their support of each other's strengths and their sensitivity to individual and suddenly observable weaknesses. The end result is a positive self-awareness and collective reinforcement that stay with participants for their entire career. Limited to 8 participants.
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Faculty: Captain James Spell and Captain James Overcash, Vail (Colorado) Fire Department, both have 25 years in the fire service. They both hold AAS degrees in fire science, and serve as fire science instructors for Colorado Mountain College and the Colorado Department of Fire Safety. Captain Spell has been a line officer for the past twelve years, and holds a B.A. in communications. Captain Overcash is a professional actor and public speaker.
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| How to Survive an Assessment Center |
| This workshop will provide an overview of promotional assessment centers. What are they, why are they used, and how are they developed? We will review the dimensions assessed, with detailed information about the skills and abilities within each dimension. Participants will be given a self-assessment tool to evaluate themselves on each dimension. We will look at exercises commonly used in assessment centers, such as the oral resume, role playing, in-basket exercise, emergency scenarios, etc., discuss scoring, and have some brief practice. The goal of the workshop is to provide participants with a better understanding of assessment centers and their value in the selection process, and to offer an opportunity to practice and become familiar with the content of exercises they might see in the future. |
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Faculty: Dr. Chris W. Hornick is president of CWH Management Solutions. He has worked in the area of industrial and organizational psychology, with an emphasis on personnel research and selection, for more than twenty years, and is a leading national authority ontesting, selection, and promotion for public safety positions. He has extensive experience conducting assessment centers for clients throughout the country. He has been a strong voice for methods that hire the best-qualified candidates and reduce disparate impact in the selection process.
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| Juvenile Fire Setters |
| The Denver Fire Department developed its juvenile fire setter program in 1995. Once a child has been involved in a fire-related incident, the parents and child are invited to an interview with a fire investigator at the fire station nearest their home. The goal is to assess the risk of future fire-setting behavior. Children indicating a high risk of such behavior are referred, with their parents, to a ten-week group session at Children's Hospital. This is followed by monthly four-hour classes that include videos of burn victims, talks by burn survivors, and open discussions between instructors and the children. The recidivism rate for participants in these classes is very low. |
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Faculty: Andrew Archuleta was hired as a Denver firefighter in 1974, working on engine companies until joining the Fire Investigation Bureau in 1990. He has been coordinator of the juvenile fire setter program since its inception in 1995. He is also Vice President of the National Association of Hispanic Fire Fighters.
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