wildland firefighter safety: training

Among the important things that I have learned in the ten years that I have been writing this blog on aerial wildland firefighting is the importance of training. All new wildland firefighters, whether they be entirely ground based, smokejumpers, tanker and helicopter pilots, ground-based support go through training when they first sign on. Often there is annual refresher training each year, for example an established crew may devote some time at the beginning of their season to any refresher training in addition to physical and endurance training in preparation for the fire season.

I have the utmost respect for any and all wildland firefighters whether they be ground-based or pilots or ground support staff. As I was reflecting on what I, someone who is not any kind of firefighter can say about training, I thought about a friend who was an airtanker pilot told me years ago about flying tankers, he said "see, I told you it is complicated." I thought about that phrase this week as I spent a few hours looking around for appropriate videos that I might share with you. Training, whether it be annual or refresher, is somewhat complicated. I feel that there is no way that I can adequately try to write about wildland firefighter training because it is not something that I have been through. Further, I quickly found that there is a lot of information out there, too much for one blog post, or even a series., I might well get in over my head if I am not careful.

But I did find a couple of videos in my wonderings on the internet this week that I am sharing with you to give us, who are not wildland firefighters, a very small taste of how new wildland firefighting recruits are trained. Perhaps the training will be different for your State agency or your nearby federal agency, but I think that you will get the idea. 

The first video is from the South Central Oregon Fire Management Partnership summarizing a week long training for new wildland firefighter recruits in a 2018 Carmen Thomas Memorial Guard School. For more information on what you will see in the video below, go to the Guard School 2018: Wildland Firefighter Training Youtube Video and click the about tab, which says in part: 

Among other subjects, the course covered classes on safety, personal protective equipment, medical, mutual respect, fire behavior, weather impacts on fire, safety equipment usage, firefighting equipment usage, wildland urban interface concerns, hazardous materials awareness, transportation safety, communications, map reading and fire investigations. Training culminated with a live fire exercise where students demonstrated their proficiency by combatting a prescribed fire initiated in a controlled environment by school cadre.

The second video is from KTVB 7, a news feature showing training of new wildland firefighters in Idaho.

direct link to video on Youtube from KTVB 7