Preparing instructors for LFT...

I conducted a burn this past weekend on a "motel" type structure. Six units, the middle four identical/mirrored, the end two were larger and with different layouts. The motel had been renovated into six "apartments", and we further connected them by adding additional entrances from unit 1 to 2, 3 to 4 and so on. The building had been vacant for three+ years, very "wet" interiorly for being open for so long, which dampened the fire behavior dramatically(another future post). All went well, no injuries and plenty of training, but it gave me the opportunity to allow a few underling instructors the chance to shadow some of my more experienced instructors as well as allow additional ignition team members to rotate in.
一些做得很好,其他的我可以告诉你不会doing LFT for me any time soon. All of the young instructors had been shadowing through the FF 1 curriculum and other smaller hands on and classroom teaching scenarios for over a year, but it was obvious that a few still need work at the basics of instruction before going further with LFT.
The motel type structure lends itself well to training both for the student as well as instructor due to the fact that there are "constants" in design built into the structure. You can have similar fires, have small changes and see the results of your actions in a real time scale. Different tactics can be used for evolutions adding to the students repertoir of mental similarities on the fireground. The same ideas hold true for the young instructors.
This ideal of shadowing instructors leads off Lt. McCormack's comment from a few days ago concerning the fact that not everyone is cut out for LFT...in fact I'd stretch that to say that MOST instructors are not cut out to conduct LFT. What I will add, and strongly at that, is the faith that Ray mentions only comes from opportunities talked about above. Fostering a faith between instructors, between firefighters in general, is what it takes to have a well working team of instructors to go out and conduct a safe and effective LFT evolution/program. I have been fortunate to work with some of the best, Ray being one of them.
To those of us that do LFT, foster your faith, grow and expand the team when you are able, keep doing what is right, and be sure everything you do is ultimately for the betterment of the fire service and the student. Stay safe Brothers.