HOW’S THAT GOING FOR YA? 

HOW’S THAT GOING FOR YA?

Gary Lane | July 7th, 2026

Just Wondering

You’ve been here a while now, and I just thought I’d check in and see how it’s been going. What’s that? You’re not sure how we do things around here? Still not sure what your role is? Not sure how that tool works? Don’t worry about it, you just need more experience. It takes time. You’ll figure it out eventually. Maybe we can do something next shift. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah… Three decades in the fire service and I’ve heard just about every single excuse for avoiding training (specifically hands on training) and passing the buck off to somebody else when it comes to gaining knowledge, brushing up on a technique or drilling on a skill set that the job requires of us. To this day, man, does it still frustrate me to no end. I’ve never understood it and I probably never will, why so many people shirk their responsibility to each other, especially to our younger folks coming on the job who need the most help and have the most questions.  Pick from a bag with a list of reasons: Ego, no plan, no preparation, lack of confidence, competence, inexperience, call volume, budget constraints, not enough time, other priorities… The list keeps going. 

Stop. Just stop. Please stop. 

“Take the time to make the time.” 

That’s a quote often attributed to the late FDNY fireman Andy Fredericks  who died on September 11th, 2001. Or maybe he was just a fan of the song “Lady” by Little River Band. Whether it be a simple song lyric or sage advice from a fire service icon, it holds true. We need to set aside a little bit of time each shift to train and drill with our people, regardless of all the other things going on around us.Let’s tackle two of the most common: Too many calls and too little money. 

Let’s start with a busy call volume. This can be very common and make for a difficult time in doing any sort of drill. Maybe consider that the call volume is the answer. Not every time. Not every call. But we need to make use of a few of these runs and use them as an opportunity for a quick drill. All dressed up and no place to go at a seven story building that just had an automatic fire alarm going off. It is a great time to take an extra couple of minutes on scene and slip in a short drill with your people. Some ideas include bringing a hose bundle inside and hooking up dry to the standpipe and flaking out the line. Your chauffeur or pump operator outside the building can do something similar and dry hook the FDC with whatever hose line you would normally use. Some buildings play nicely with this and make for a quick easy drill. Other buildings can be complicated and that can eat up more time when you include repacking hose and getting the rig back in service. Have a plan should another call come in that requires you to immediately leave. Something as simple as taking the nozzle off the hose line and just leaving the hose there until you can come back and get it might be an option in certain districts where the people that live there don’t have a problem with it. I say leave the hose/take the nozzle, because multiple lengths of hose are harder to steal than unscrewing the nozzle tip and walking off with it (if that’s a concern in your area). Doing this once in a while will typically flush out equipment problems, thread size and type issues, length of stretch, apparatus positions both good and bad, physical limitations and time to task for different age, size and shape firefighters, and just generally get our folks more familiar with the potential operations in that building. Try and keep it to 10-15 minutes and you may get more buy in from some of the naysayers, and keep others with short attention spans engaged. Similar examples could include throwing ladders or putting the aerial to the roof. Just keep it relevant, short and sweet. Next let’s talk about money. Many departments are tight on money when it comes to the training budget. There’s not a whole lot most of us can do about that. You may not have endless overtime to use on your days off to attend classes, or thousands to pay for expensive training props. You will need to fit it in while on shift as best as possible having a list of go to topics planned out that involve minimal resources that the department has to pay for and trying to get creative with those topics with whatever your firehouse or district can provide. This can play right into the first example above regarding a busy shift filled with runs. When we are limited financially, we need to get a little more creative. A lot of good stuff gets thrown in dumpsters and taken to the curb every week around most cities. Start keeping an eye out for things you could make use of. A section of old metal fencing could be used for practicing with an angle grinder or saw. A large roll off dumpster in the back of an apartment building makes for a great place to quickly refresh on airbags and cribbing. I have even built cheap forcible entry door props made mostly out of curbside treasures that I simply kept my eyes open for. Stopping by construction sites or buildings being demolished or renovated and speaking with the workers has many times yielded amazing opportunities for training that cost nothing more than our time while on shift. I used to carry a cordless driver with some bits and a sawzall with different blades around with us when riding the ambulance. We’d stop whenever we had some free time between runs, talk to a few people and get quick permission to go in a vacant building, scavenge a few door locks, sections of doors, pieces of rebar, etc… and later use these for a thru the lock drill, or whatever else we could come up with. Quick, easy, and free. 

Closing

Whatever your problems are day to day at the firehouse, you still need to prioritize some form of training. Do your best to get rid of the excuses and make room for opportunities that can easily fall into your lap with a little creativity. It doesn’t need to be glamorous or hours long to be worth your time. Forcing a single door at a building that has an excavator sitting out front warming up for the demo today is still better than another day passing filled with a bunch of woulda, coulda and shoulda griping. Get out and find a way! Keep grinding!