Knowledge and Experience: Becoming the Senior Firefighter

By Jeff Johnson

Every day on fire apparatus across this country, senior firefighters are relied on for decision making during incidents. As company officers, apparatus operators, and firefighters, we depend on that experience and decision making to keep us safe. When assigned to a company, a junior firefighter arrives with the knowledge received from the fire academy or a firefighter training program he attended and possibly some previous experience. We must understand that although these junior firefighters have received the same basic training that the senior firefighters received, they do not have the experience and practical application to understand and make decisions like senior firefighters. Junior firefighters fresh from the academy or training program "do not have strategic or tactical knowledge"; they have "task" knowledge, and that is it. Below, I discuss how firefighters gain practical useful knowledge and put it to use.

当消防队员完成基本的学院或training program, they leave with the basic knowledge to implement whatever task their company officer assigns them. We may assume nothing beyond this. Absolutely, the academy training is a foundation on which they can build, but after that, they experience learning. Each time a firefighter practices pulling a handline from the engine, removing a ground ladder from a truck to clean it, or removing a cot from the ambulance, that person is learning. Senior firefighters and company officers can use these opportunities to teach tactical knowledge. Although it may be simple learning, it is building muscle memory. On arrival at a fire that necessitates a handline be stretched, the firefighter who has regularly practiced basic stretching at the firehouse, will be more capable and successful in stretching a handline than one who has not.