In my first entry, I talked a little about my background and the 2 departments I currently belong to. In this edition, I'm going to talk about my career department, my next article will cover my volunteer department.
As I stated before, I am a Captain for Dunbar Fire Department in Dunbar,WV. Our dept. is a little unique in the fact that we only staff 4 firefighters per shift. We operate out of 2 stations, with an Asst. Chief (shift commander) and a firefighter out of Central Station, a Captain and a firefighter out of Station 2. We also have a Chief and Deputy Chief that operate out of Central Station Mon-Fri 8a-4p.
Our Dept. is also unique in the fact that half of the 14 members have 6 years experience or less. This leaves very little room to hide and makes you grow up as a firefighter very fast. When I was hired, there were only 3 people with less than 9 years of service, so experience and knowledge were at an abundance.
The theme of this blog is big city tactics in a small dept. We have a certain way of doing things on emergency responses that is very efficient and works quite well for us. I have friends on other larger departments ask me quite often...."how do you guys do it with only 4 guys?" That question actually made me sit down and think "how do we do it."
We have to be able to do the job of 15-20 people at a larger dept. with only 4 guys. Which means, we have to stretch lines, search the structure, get a water supply, fire attack, ventilate, etc. with limited manpower in a short amount of time.
I am very curious about how you do things at your department. Leave a comment or feel free to email me at thefirehousebench@Gmail.com. Thanks and stay safe
The views expressed in this blog are of the writers opinion only and do not reflect the department I work for or any employee/member of those depts.
No comments:
Post a Comment