A fire fighting course will teach you how to handle some of the most dangerous scenarios imaginable: roaring flames, billowing smoke and collapsing buildings. However, the aim of a course is to teach students how to engage with these scenarios as safely as possible. EMCARE offers many fire fighting courses, from basic to specialised, each including a multitude of modules specifically designed to help keep firefighters and their teams safe. This article will look at a number of the core safety principles in the firefighting career and how training impresses these upon students.
The Importance Of Keeping A Firefighter Safe
Firefighting is an incredibly high-risk profession, the very nature of the work regularly exposing one to all kinds of threats, including but not limited to open flame, heavy smoke, toxic fumes and collapsing structures. As an aspiring firefighter, you will doubtlessly be motivated by self-preservation (which is as understandable as it is valid), but there are other reasons why firefighters ought to keep themselves safe.
Firefighting is a group effort that requires careful coordination from each member within the team. If any single firefighter is disabled, the effectiveness of the entire operation becomes undermined, allowing the situation to degrade further. Keeping a firefighter safe is no small matter, however, and requires structured training from a professional fire fighting course that prepares students for the technical, physical and emotional demands of the job. Fortunately, that’s just what EMCARE’s courses are designed to do.
How An EMCARE Fire Fighting Course Helps Keep A Firefighter Safe
EMCARE is a trusted South African provider of emergency response courses, aligned with South African National Standards (SANS) and relevant occupational safety laws. We do not simply offer a fire fighting course, we offer a range of basic, advanced and specialised courses that prepare students for a wide array of fire scenarios.
Most courses cover fundamental points such as fire suppression, fire behaviour and tool use. However, each course also includes essential safety-centric modules such as evacuation planning, risk evaluation and team coordination, helping keep the firefighter from harm on the fire line. EMCARE takes a very hands-on approach to the training of our students, putting them in simulated real-world scenarios that prepare them for the full physical and emotional intensity of fire suppression.
Moreover, EMCARE believes strongly in education as an ongoing process, providing re-certification, advancement courses and specialisation courses that ensure our students are always prepared for anything.
Using Firefighting Tools Safely
A firefighter is expected to use their wits and physical prowess in fire suppression scenarios, but fortunately, they’re not expected to rely solely on these personal factors. A firefighter’s arsenal includes a multitude of advanced tools, including but not limited to hoses, extinguishers, ladders, beaters, vulcanised suits and breathing apparatuses. These tools, while useful to any firefighter, generally aren’t particularly easy to use.
To ensure that all tools are utilised effectively and safely, the EMCARE fire fighting course will use practical exercises, constant repetition and theoretical understanding to make the use of these tools a matter of muscle memory. The course will also stress heavily the importance of regular inspections and maintenance, to ensure that no firefighter is forced to confront a fire without equipment that they can rely on.
Stressing The Importance Of Teamwork
No firefighter works alone. They are a part of a cohesive unit, whether that be as a member of a smaller squad or as a part of a larger organisation. To make this happen, each individual member needs to exemplify the qualities of good communication, coordination and mutual trust. To instil these values, a fire fighting course will heavily feature group exercises where simulated scenarios are tackled as a team, allowing students to develop trust in one another and learn to work together as a single entity.
Students are taught just how important accountability systems are, stressing points such as knowing where all team members are at all times. To allow the spirit of teamwork to flourish, courses will teach ways to manage stress using peer support, letting resilience come from cohesion. At the end of the day, teamwork will be the greatest factor that reduces mistakes and makes threats more manageable, making it an amazing safety asset.
Fire Fighting Course And Evacuation Planning
One thing that you’ll learn during your firefighting training is that a fire is never approached without an escape plan formulated first. Firefighters will learn how to take in a fire scenario at a glance and identify risks as well as possible escape routes.
They’ll learn to count with factors such as moving flames, heavy smoke that obscures vision and panicked crowds. To these ends, a firefighter will learn how to control crowds of civilians, safely navigate heavy smoke and keep in communication with their team during evacuation. This requires a grasp of both human and fire behaviour, which a course will work hard to impress upon its students. Firefighters know to always monitor a scenario, as the nature of a fire is ever evolving, requiring one to formulate new evacuation plans as the situation changes.
Emcare’s Fire Fighting Course Is The Perfect Choice
In conclusion, the EMCARE fire fighting course is about more than protecting the lives of others and of physical structures and environments. At its core, it works to equip students with the skills, abilities and attitudes necessary to keep themselves safe in a career so fraught with danger, thereby making them more effective at their job.
As a trusted and certified provider of emergency response courses, EMCARE is the perfect choice for anyone looking to equip themselves with lifesaving skills while protecting their own lives. Our basic, advanced and specialised courses include a vast number of safety-centric modules and methodologies, ranging from effective use of tools to evacuation planning. To begin plotting out your own firefighting career, you can visit the EMCARE website and view our many courses.
