Training

Aerial Ladder & Tower Ladder Operation and Placement Class

This 16-hour class is designed to prepare and enhance drivers for the role of positioning and operating an aerial device. This is not your typical state-level aerial operations course. Students will learn and refresh on the building blocks and work toward learning their specific apparatus. We will find the operational footprint and all the limitations the apparatus has when positioning. We explore all facets of normal and backup operations. Then, we then take this information to the street and apply it in your first due area.

This course is a must for firefighters, fire Officers, company and chief officers, drivers, and engineers. Each rank will derive benefits from this training course. Participants in this class will have a newfound admiration for the aerial devices that they operate and other types of aerial devices out there. This class will cause aerial operators to maximize the use of these very expensive, yet underutilized and misunderstood pieces of apparatus. With this greater understanding of aerial devices and their uses, fire ground operations will be enhanced, and fire scene safety will increase. This course consists of 8 hours of classroom and 8 hours of hands-on training.

Topics Include:

  • Current Events
  • Vehicle Design
  • Aerial Apparatus Loading
  • Portable Ladders
  • Aerial Positioning Hazards
  • Aerial Apparatus Training
  • Aerial Maintenance and Overrides
  • Aerial Positioning
  • Aerial Civilian and Firefighter Rescues
  • Hands-On Drill
  • Hands-On Apparatus Footprint
  • Hands-On Apparatus Positioning

Your Instructor:

Nick Wilbur is a 17-year veteran of the fire service. He works for the Arlington County (VA) Fire Department. He is also a Volunteer at the College Park (MD) Volunteer Fire Department, where he has been a member for 15 years, 10 of which he has been a master driver. He has been published in Fire Engineering magazine for ladder placement and has been a HOT instructor and classroom instructor at FDIC for the same. He has served as an SME for course writing and review for Lexipol on apparatus driving and operation topics. He has taught across the country helping departments gain full use of their aerial apparatus.

Engine Company Proficiency, Positioning, and Operations

The difference between success and failure on the fire ground almost always rests on the ability and proficiency of the initial engine company. However, successful engine company operations aren’t just “putting wet stuff on the red stuff”, it starts well before the alarm is sounded. Understanding necessary jurisdictional fire flow requirements, optimizing apparatus hose loads and appliances, and applying progressive fire ground positioning and tactics create the rock-solid foundation of any engine company. This engine company course provides all these concepts and more.

The Engine company proficiency, positioning, and operations course is a 16-hour program. The class consists of a comprehensive 8-hour classroom portion with an interactive 8-hour practical portion. The objective of this course is to give each student a much greater understanding of their current engine companies. This greater understanding of everything from hydraulic calculations to hose selections to fire ground positioning will allow members to fully optimize their engine companies, create dynamic drills and training, and lay the groundwork for future purchases.

The class will focus on the specific apparatus and jurisdiction of the department’s pumpers. Today’s fire service has the trend of including fire pumps in all new apparatus. Engines, Aerials, Rescues, and everything in between is being sold with various-sized pumps and hose loads. It is fundamentally important that members truly understand the capacity and capabilities of their engines and pumps, along with how to apply them to their unique staffing and jurisdictional needs.

The engine company course is designed for firefighters, apparatus operators, training officers, line officers, maintenance personnel, and chief officers that are expected to have an intimate knowledge of these apparatus. This course will also help stakeholders and training officers meet NFPA fire flows and understand how the purchase of hose and nozzles affects firefighting operations.

Engine Company Table of Contents:

  • Introduction
  • Overview/Responsibilities/Priorities
  • Establishing the Engine Company Mindset
  • Positioning
  • Basic Water Theory/Hydraulics
  • Water Supply
  • Fire Attack
  • Special Considerations

Your instructors:

Matt Cardoso is a 14-year veteran of the fire service with both volunteer and career experience. He has been a driver/operator for over 12 years and is currently a fire technician for Prince George’s County Fire Dept in Maryland. He has been a certified state instructor for several years and has taught many EVOC, Pumps, and Aerial Ops classes along with several recruit classes in Maryland. He was a HOT instructor at FDIC, teaching Engine Company positioning.

Jimmy Clem has over 17 years of experience in the fire service with 14 of them being in a career department. He is a Maryland State Certified Instructor. Jimmy has a true passion for anything Engine Company related. He is currently assigned as a Lieutenant at an Engine Company. He has over 13 years of engine driving and pumping experience. Throughout the years Jimmy has enjoyed passing on the knowledge learned from being at a busy engine company in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

Emergency Vehicle Operators Course

Reasons Why Your Department Needs an Emergency Vehicle Operators Course

  • Your department may save money off your insurance premiums.
  • The cost of this course will be far less than the cost of an accident or the lawsuit that is sure to follow.
  • This course will help your department re-examine the way they drive and operate emergency vehicles. Which every department needs!
  • This course can and has prevented accidents.
  • Heightens drivers’ awareness of their rights and responsibilities under your state laws.
  • This course costs way less than one percent of the cost of your department’s next new apparatus. This course also costs less than the repair of most apparatus accidents.
  • The most important part of your new quarter of a million-dollar fire truck is the person behind the wheel. Educating and empowering your personnel to make the right decision is priceless.
  • ISO requires EVOC training Yearly for all fire department drivers.

Your instructor:

Tim Curran works as an Emergency Vehicle Driver (EVD) for the Baltimore City Fire Department and is currently working out of Truck 16 on Baltimore’s west side. He has worked for the city since 2014 and was promoted to EVD in 2019. Tim is also a life member of the College Park Volunteer Fire Department and has served with the CPVFD since 2008. Tim has been driving and operating emergency vehicles for 15 years. Tim was an FDIC HOT instructor for Aerial and Tower Ladder Operations.

Apparatus architect purchasing seminar

Purchasing Fire Apparatus represents the single largest capital expenditure, other than building a new fire station that a fire department will make. In some cases the fire apparatus may actually cost more than a new fire station. Fire Apparatus have become very complex to specify and to build due to rapid technological advances. These technological advances have left most fire departments ill equipped to make knowledgeable, informed decisions, when specifying new apparatus. Moreover if your apparatus sales person has little or no experience selling fire apparatus, the outcome of your apparatus project is predictable and doomed. Believing that knowledge is power, this program will provide the attendee with logical, knowledge based information to help your department avoid the pitfalls that many fire departments have encountered when purchasing fire apparatus. One would only have to look at three fire departments in any direction from your fire department to find fellow firefighters who are very unhappy with a recently purchased apparatus.

Perhaps buying a new apparatus is out of the question. This program will also discuss the positives and negatives associated with buying used apparatus. Also, we will discuss whether rehab or not to rehab existing apparatus.

This program is designed for anyone in the fire service that plays any part in fire apparatus purchasing, fire apparatus sales, fire apparatus manufacturing or fleet management and maintenance.

This presentation serves to educate present and future generations of firefighters and officers that are saddled with the awesome responsibility of purchasing new or used fire apparatus that must serve their jurisdictions for many years to come. A purchasing methodology will be presented that will reduce the cost of the apparatus and will reduce the time required to develop the right apparatus specification for your fire department’s application.