To Schedule: Call 609-977-7172

Despite the good intentions of so many in the fire service to prepare our future leaders, there are some barriers being created by others who are countering those efforts. There are some individuals and organizations who are not working in the best interest of the fire service despite claiming to do so resulting in confusion, ignorance, poor decision making, bad practices, and even dangerous recruiting campaigns. There are agendas out there designed to create division, push false narratives, use scare tactics, and encourage an “us before them” mindset. Training academies teaching fire 1-2 and the many beneficial books out there have great intentions and they are helpful but are just not enough to fully prepare our future leaders. 

We are teaching many of our new firefighters to become robots, droids, and drones. Instead, we should be teaching them how to improvise, overcome and adapt if that’s the avenue needed for a successful outcome. Not being able to think or perform outside of a guideline, rule, common practice, or an SOP is dangerous. Realistic training has also become more difficult. There’s more than one way to perform a rescue, extinguish a fire, throw a ladder, force entry, supply water. 

In today’s society, everything is being filmed and uploaded for everyone to see. Liability issues lurk everywhere in our culture of legitimate and frivolous lawsuits.

This course is for the aspiring, acting, and new company or chief officer. Career, volunteer or combination department.

This 16 hour 2-day fast pace-content-loaded course will focus on street smart tactics and critical decision making for the following:

SFD’s, MFD’s, Taxpayers
Basements, Cellars,
Attics, Cocklofts,
Highrises Fires-Emergencies,
Target Hazard Occupancies (Vacant Structures, Service Stations, Prisons, Hospitals, Hotels, Motels)
Difficult to Access Areas (Bridges, Tunnels, Parking Garages, Marinas)
Target Hazard Vehicle Fires and Rescues
Rapid Rescue Operations (Vehicles and Structures)
Proactive RIT/FAST
CNG, LPG, Flammable liquids
Transportation Machinery (Elevators, Rapid Transit) 

Bottom line, 🚒 First on scene, 🔥 First Due Initial Actions, 👨‍🚒 Aggressive Realistic Tactics, 💩 No Bullshit. Improvise, Overcome, Adapt, by preparing firefighters to achieve successful outcomes during routine and complicated incidents. Contact Brian Butler  urbanfiretraining@gmail.com 

This course will cover strategy and tactics in attics, cocklofts, and half-stories. Not all top floor fires are the same, there are several different types of attics and lofts with different methods of fire attack. From cocklofts in taxpayers and residential suburban storage attics, to urban living space attics in 2 1/2 story wood-frame homes, your on-approach size up indicators will set the stage for your incident action plan. The main focus for this course will be size-up, determining the type of attic from the street, fire attack methods, difficult access, ventilation options and overhaul, the importance of safely checking and extinguishing hidden fire in void space.

Fires in basements kill more firefighters than any other area of the structure. This course will include basements, cellars, and sub-cellars, covering initial size up, floor stability, floor and building construction, support systems, renovated structures, urban vs suburban basements, living space vs storage, utilities, entanglement/entrapment hazards, forcible entry of Bilco and several different types of window barriers, MAYDAY response, exterior and interior egress, fire attack, and ventilation options for SFD's, MFD's, taxpayers, and garden apartments.

In addition, the critical role of the pro-active RIT duty assignments, and making the "go" or "no go" decision to advance over the fire and down the stairs. 

Using UL studies, real basement fire incidents involving close calls and LODD"s; This course is a must for every interior firefighter.

“Real-World" Tactics for Fires in Vacant, Abandoned, Hazardous and Dilapidated Structures.” 

Vacant properties used to be an inner-city problem but that is no longer the case. Suburban and metropolitan areas have seen an increased presence of abandoned residential and vacant commercial properties. Many of these buildings are not only prone to fires, they’re occupied by drug users, gangs, copper thieves, squatters, and vagrants. 

These properties may be structurally unstable with many interior and exterior dangers from holes in the floors, open roofs, rotted floor decking, fortified board ups, window bars and prior burns to bio-hazards. In addition, firefighters may have to navigate broken glass, tires, needles, and hoarding conditions. We can’t always assume that these buildings are unoccupied and go defensive. 

This presentation focuses on size-up, locating victims, unique rapid search and rescue options, savvy laddering and ‘bridging’, forcible entry, safe aggressive strategies and some unorthodox tactics to make the push and the grab. 

It's critical for all firefighters, company and chief officers to understand the dangers of the perimeter, signs and type of collapse, interior and exterior fire spread, construction, renovations, and understanding the damaging effects caused by thermal exposure and urban mining with abandoned buildings.   

This is our most popular course and is available for drill nights, seminars, fund raisers, conferences etc.. 

Related article: 

https://www.firehouse.com/operations-training/article/12389383/marking-vacant-and-abandoned-building

This course goes beyond just highrise fires. With less time devoted to the obvious building construction and incident command, the course will focus on wind-driven fires, elevator operations, size up, residential vs commercial strategy and tactics, ventilation, search and evacuation, roof operations, attached occupanices, adjacent properties,  underground parking areas, utility areas, transformers, penthouses, HVAC-air handlers, storage areas, methane, propane, and CO releases, stack effect, and fires in the subdivision. 

This course prepares the new firefighter and company officer to mitigate various incidents involving a highrise building. Additional UL studies, NIST and LODD case studies will be reviewed and discussed.

Custom extended courses covering machinery and elevator extrication, high-angle rope rescue and hazmats can be requested.

This course expands on conventional vehicle fires and hybrids by preparing firefighters for more complicated, dangerous fires. These high risk/low frequency fires involve RV's, food trucks, sanitation vehicles, ambulances, bobtails, trailers, high hazard commercial vehicles,  and tankers. Course will also cover the hazards of the modern day motor vehicle, handling burning magnesium, running fuel fires, and AR-AFFF use. This course can be customized and is usually combined with our "transportation machinery" course (see below).

Elevators, Trains and Automobiles are types of "transportation" machinery. They are moving, passenger occupied machines that transport millions of passengers every single day. Transportation machinery requires a thorough size-up before any rescue or suppression begins. 

Encountering high voltage, flammables, explosives, hydraulics, stored energy, malfunctioning equipment, running fuel, heavy vehicles, vehicles transporting children, the elderly and handicapped or trapped passengers with traumatic injuries are just some of the obstacles firefighters will be faced with when arriving to an emergency involving transportation machinery. 

Imagine arriving to an overturned RV with passenger entrapment, exposed propane tanks and fire in the engine compartment. What are your initial actions for a rapid rescue with an understaffed suppression unit on a busy highway? 

Should we even attempt to stabilize a damaged elevator full of passengers?  

What size up factors should we consider when arriving to a burning passenger train under high voltage lines in electrified territory away from the terminal? 

The liability issues of untrained firefighters attempting to perform rescues and suppression around dangerous complex moving machinery must be recognized. Just because the fire department arrives first doesn't mean they alone are responsible for complete mitigation of the incident.  

When dealing with various elevators, high speed passenger trains and light rail, and "target hazard" vehicles from passenger loaded buses to CNG trucks, a size up is critical. 

This course will cover the dangers and hazards to mitigate and resources to contact BEFORE rapid rescue, extrication, suppression, or recovery operations begin. 

This is a size-up class on dangerous and complex machinery. See article in September 2019 issue of Fire Engineering.