Minimum Standards for Firefighters
Across the Nation, State to State, City to City, town to town, and fire department to fire department the meaning of the term “firefighter” is different.
Merriam Webster defines it as “a person who fights fires” source
That about sums it up doesn’t it…Goodnight!
Wait a minute…that is way to easy. You mean that I have devoted my life to a profession, a job, a career, a lifestyle and that is all I get in the damn dictionary?
What about real life? What is a firefighter?
Without going into every discipline a firefighter might be trained in I will name a few – Fire suppression, high rise fires, ventilation, salvage, overhaul, wildland firefighting, pump operations, heavy technical rescue, trench rescue, rope rescue, EVOC, confined space rescue, collapse rescue, emergency medical services (ALS and/or BLS), HAZMAT, IMS, investigation, and so on and so forth.
What are the minimum standards for being “a person who fights fires”?
The short answer is there aren’t any. The long answer is that in various localities and some States “minimum” standards do exist.
For the majority of “career” firefighters the minimum standards are typically set forth by the locality they work for.
Many States have certificate levels of training, but the departments do not have to abide by any standards of certification.
To put it bluntly, some “firefighters” are not any more of a firefighter than joe schmoe who uses his water hose to put water on a fire before the fire department gets there.
That is right! Some firefighters have no more training than “learning” on actual fires by other firefighters.
This is a real problem. This problem might not be very bad in urban areas, but it does exist in a lot of places.
Many who read this might find it hard to believe that fire departments let members operate in suppression activities without proper training. It happens every day.
Why we need minimum standards
We need minimum standards for several reasons. Mostly so that when the public calls on their FD, they are ensured getting qualified “firefighters”. However, the reasons can be as far reaching as getting legislation to cover line of duty injuries and deaths.
We all know how dangerous our jobs can be. Why in the world would we not want some form of a minimum standard set to ensure firefighters are not endangering themselves on calls without the proper training.
What should be the minimum standards?
That is the million dollar question.
To me, the answer is simple:
The minimum standard for riding in fire apparatus and operating on emergency incidents should include basic firefighter training. In Virginia (my State) this would include at least Firefighter I.
Other classes that should be a necessity are Incident Command, EVOC, Haz Mat, and at least a first responder level EMS certification.
Without that “firefighters” should not be riding on rigs.
Furthermore, there should be an age requirement on operating inside an IDLH (immediately dangerous to life and health) atmosphere.
This “minimum standard” should be at least State certified if not Federally Mandated.
Are you required to have training as a firefighter? Who requires it?
In Texas all paid firefighters are required to maintain FF-Basic through the Texas Commission on Fire Protection. That consists of a little over 600 hours minimum and gets you FFI, FFII, and HazMat Awareness & Ops. To get the certification you also have to have an EMS certification that's equivalent to FR (in Texas it's called ECA- Emergency Care Attendant) but no one hires people who aren't EMT's and a lot of academies pair EMT-B with FF-B anyway.
Volunteers are completely unregulated in Texas but the State Firemen's and FIre Marshal's Association has some voluntary certification programs. The volunteer basic certification is 162 hours of training attested to by your sponsoring agency (that is, there is no culminating test and no CE) and you don't get any sort of IFSAC seal out of it.
Ugh, minimum requirements don't even begin to explain what we need. FFI, FFII, Hazmat Awareness and Ops, Pump Ops, EMR, PCP, Vehicle Ex, class 4 driver's with air brakes…….. it never ends.
There is a lot of merit to the Volunteer vs. Career firefighting in this matter. I decided not to hit on it or the post would have been much longer. Your differences in TX can be seen many places. Although, the Texas Commission on Fire Protection has certainly got their act together!
Yes indeed…but we have to start somewhere right!
Minumum Requirements for an volunteer firefighter [Firefighter 1] in Nordrhein Westfalen (federal State Germany) consist of 320h theory and practice. In this time you get an overview of the standard operations of an firefighter. Yet you are not allowed to do any special operations, like wearing an SCBA or driving an Pumper. Additionally you must always group with an experienced firefighter [Firefighter 2] (we always work in an two man group).
As for my department you get directly after this overview: Radio, SCBA and Hazmat training.
After completing this three you are allowed to get training at the Country Department which trains: Pumper, Traffic Accident and antifall guard.
Stil it is highly recommend to group with an F2 firefighter. After completing all training courses you are allowed to go to the course for Firefighter 2, who is allowed to lead an two man group.
For my personal opinion, even with all this training sessions you are not much of an firefighter. Many hours of the training sessions are theory or practical action which does not recall much of an real incident. To make the new ones real firefighter you have to train in realistic training sessions and put much time into them. Therefor even if there are minimum requirements, there are great differences between firefighters of different towns.
“Furthermore, there should be an age requirement on operating inside an IDLH (immediately dangerous to life and health) atmosphere.”
There IS a Federally Mandated minimum age requirement. It's called Fair Labor Standards Act, more specifically; 29 CFR Parts 570 to 580
The child labor provisions of the Act include restrictions on hours of work and occupations for youths under age 16. These provisions also set forth 17 hazardous occupations orders for jobs that the Secretary has declared too dangerous for those under age 18 to perform.
The permissible jobs and hours of work, by age, in nonfarm work are as follows:
* Minors age 18 or older are not subject to restrictions on jobs or hours
* Minors age 16 and 17 may perform any job not declared hazardous by the Secretary, and are not subject to restrictions on hours
* Minors age 14 and 15 may work outside school hours in various nonmanufacturing, non-mining, nonhazardous jobs listed by the Secretary in regulations published at 29 CFR Part 570 under the following conditions: no more than three hours on a school day, 18 hours in a school week, eight hours on a non-school day, or 40 hours in a non-school week. In addition, they may not begin work before 7 a.m. or work after 7 p.m., except from June 1 through Labor Day, when evening hours are extended until 9 p.m. The permissible work for 14 and 15 year olds is limited to those jobs in the retail, food service, and gasoline service establishments specifically listed in the Secretary’s regulations. Those enrolled in an approved Work Experience and Career Exploration Program (WECEP) may work up to 23 hours in school weeks and three hours on school days (including during school hours) There are also OSHA requirements. The protection is there, but there is no enforcement either by the government, or by departments themselves.
Texas is also changing the curriculum for volunteers. When implemented later this year, volunteer training will mirror the NFPA requirements for FFI and FFII including skills and testing.
Florida requires approx 400 hours = FF1, FF2, First Responder, and a 40 hour Hazmat Awareness. However, most schools actually add in extra hours and make it closer to around 500-600 hours. Unfortunately, First Responder is kind of redundant because almost every dept requires minimum of EMT-B, and often EMT-P which is separate from minimum standards training. It takes approx 2 years to get through the training, then you have to get hired and that can take a long time b/c it's extremely competitive.
Solgull,
It sounds like your area has a decent set up for initial training or “minimum standards”. This is definitely referring to training to get you to the point of being a “probie” or rookie”. Once you get to that point then the firefighters can move onto learning on the job from seasoned firefighters.
Thanks Oldman!
Thanks for taking the time to pull out the legislation!
And as far as what I have said, you are very right about having these standards in place. However, the issue still exists that not all departments are following them. I realize that this isn't quite the issue I brought up due to you pointing out the FLSA.
Possibly more for another post though. Thanks again for the comment.
Charlie,
I have heard of Florida's system. It seems as though they have it squared away.
One question though. Is that just for paid personnel or for volunteers as well?
I'm not 100% sure, but I believe vollies can be just FF1 which includes first responder. I work in Cocoa Beach and we're paid only, but our neighbor Cape Canaveral is mixed volly/paid.. They go into some detail about what volunteering entails on their website: http://www.ccvfd.org/Join_Us.htm