Aviation Fire Prevention - is it time for an advanced credentialing program?

In the fire service, we have advanced certifications and credentialing for almost every niche within the industry. There is the beginning required certifications of, EMT and firefighter. Progressing on to advanced level training of paramedic or officer level certifications.  Then there is specialty training on truck operations, technical rescue, hazardous materials, and ARFF. Beyond these, at the highest levels there is credentialing through organizations such as the Center for Public Safety Excellence.  The world of aviation firefighting is no different. In this niche industry we have the basic ARFF certification, we have ARFF specific officer certifications, and specialty training programs. We have credentialing as an A.M.F. through the ARFFWG and AAAE.  The ARFF training and educational path is further clarified through the ARFF Professional Development Framework Manual.  

When it comes to the area of fire prevention, especially in aviation, there is no established path or further specialized training. The same requirements for a fire inspector for the municipal structural department is all that is required for the airport and ARFF department. However, the environment, challenges, hazards, systems, processes, and code applications can be very different. Fire prevention in the ARFF environment is a specialized field and should require an advanced (or additional) level of training to ensure basic competence and understanding of the hazards and code applications that will apply. 

I have created a draft program outline. The program is called the Aviation Fire Prevention Credentialing Program. What follows is a brief outline of the program. The complete program and proposed curriculum can be downloaded here.

The program is divided into two credentials -- Aviation Fire Inspector (AFI), and the Aviation Fire Prevention Officer (AFPO).  The point-of-entry for this program is certification (State/IFSAC/ICC/ProBoard) as a Fire Inspector I, Fire Inspector II, and three years of experience in fire prevention or ARFF.

The first level of credentialing is the Aviation Fire Inspector (AFI). 

AFI credential program prerequisites:

• Certified as Fire Inspector I/II (State/IFSAC/ICC/ProBoard)
• Three years of experience in fire prevention or ARFF

The process for becoming a credentialed AFI is as follows:

• Submit application
• Application is reviewed and approved
• Candidate must register for and attend the 24 hour ‘Aviation Fire Inspector Course’ 
• Pass the class final exam with at least an 75%
• Credential awarded

The next level of credentialing is the Aviation Fire Prevention Officer (AFPO) credential. This credential is designed for the highest ranking fire prevention official, with program management and leadership responsibilities.

AFPO credential program prerequisites:

• Successful completion of AFI credential.
• Minimum of Fire Officer 1 certification (Fire Officer 2 recommended)
• Minimum of 5 years experience in ARFF and/or fire prevention.

The process for becoming a credentialed AFPO is as follows:

• Submit application
• Application is reviewed and approved
• Completion of 24 hour ‘Aviation Fire Prevention Officer Course’ 
• Pass the class final exam with at least an 75%
• Completion and presentation of an applied research paper (management, case study, proposal, project)
• Credential awarded

Download the full program and curriculum here.

What are your thoughts? Is it time for a credentialing program? Do you see a need for this type of training, credentialing process? I am looking for your feedback. Please comment below, or contact me directly at, thecodecoach@gmail.com.

www.AaronJ.org

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Why I quit the fire service...for consulting

I entered the fire service when I was twenty-two years old. I had no idea what I was getting into. It seemed like a good career choice. And it has been! From my earliest days in the fire academy I knew I wanted to pursue two specific niches - ARFF (aircraft rescue firefighting) and Fire Prevention. The last sixteen years have given me many opportunities to accomplish much in these fields.  With this professional career and growth came personal development. A passion I picked up and actively pursue is involvement in codes and standards.  As technology develops and the speed of implementation increases, it has become increasingly difficult to manage code requirements that keep pace with advances in fire protection and emerging technology. This has created a need within the fire protection industry. 

For the past several years, I have worked with various clients to help them close the gap between their technology and the code requirements. I was doing this as a “side-hustle” along with my responsibilities at the fire department. However, as demand has increased for these services, and the market is demanding that this space  be filled, I have made the decision to resign from the fire department and pursue this effort (my passion) with my full focus. 

I work with companies, individuals, and organizations that are making the world a better place through innovative fire protection technologies.  I do this by raising awareness of the fire problem, providing education on the unique solution, and fully implementing the fire protection solution.  This is achieved through content creation, training curriculum and program delivery, and codes and standards development.

If you have an innovative fire protection product or service, or a new application for an existing fire protection solution, then we need to be working together! 

www.AaronJ.org

thecodecoach@gmail.com

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Fire Inspector Qualifications - A Path for Professional Development

Photo credit: Los Angeles Fire Department

It has been almost thirteen years since I walked into the fire academy to get the education I needed for a career. My intention was to become a “firefighter” however, it was in the academy, that I learned of the various pathways that title and role could follow. Of the nearly 400 hours of training that is required to become a certified firefighter in the state of Florida, about four of those hours are dedicated to fire prevention. It was with this brief introduction that I knew the path my career would follow.

A quick search on professional development in the fire service will return a plethora of information on career guidance and advancement. The majority of this information will be based on the operations and suppression side of the industry.  There is a disproportionately small amount of information on career development for the fire prevention, inspections, and plan review divisions of this field.

With the many different certification bodies, educational programs, and course options, it can be difficult to create a clear path for success in the field.  However, with some simple guidance and a bit of persistence success can be had. The starting point is within yourself. You must determine the goals and objectives that you have for your career. Do you want to work for a municipal fire department or an industrial type of department? Do you want to work in public service, or the private sector? Are you excited about a career in your “hometown” department, or are you looking forward to the travel and “adventure” that overseas contract work can provide? What part of fire prevention do you want to focus on - inspections, plan review, public education, or investigations? Where are you now and where do you want to be, and what is the ultimate goal of your career? Do you desire to move up the career ladder - inspector, supervisor, chief? The answers to these questions will help to shed light on your career pathway.

After you have an idea of what direction you want your fire inspection and plan review career to follow, you will need to obtain the necessary certifications.  Typically, you will find that these requirements follow these four primary certification paths. These are State specific requirements, IFSAC/ProBoard, International Code Council (ICC), and National Fire Protection Association (NFPA).

Always start with your state’s requirements. Some states defer the certification process to these other listed certifying bodies, and others have their own programs for certification.  Beyond the state requirements, the chart below, shows the certification levels that are available, in the order they should be obtained within.

For certifications related to advancement, there are many options. There is currently no set standard for obtaining the top rank within fire prevention (such as Fire Marshal or Chief of Prevention). The state of Florida and the state of California are two states that provide a formal certification for these positions. Their programs can serve as a model for other states, departments, and organizations to follow.

Model Programs

Florida

California

The chart below is based on the Department of Defense (DoD) requirements for fire service positions. This can serve as a general guide to professional development and advancement. In the least, this provides a framework to build your career on, it can be modified to meet your particular state or departments requirements.

Keep in mind that the career path presented here is showing only the path of fire inspector and plans examiner, to Chief Officer.  There are additional certification requirements for those who desire to take the fire prevention path of public educator, fire investigator, or community risk reduction specialist. Though there is overlap in the certification process, each of these have their own path to the top positions in this field.

Fire Prevention Blueprint

Attention, Fire Prevention Professionals!

Build an Effective and Efficient Fire Prevention Organization!

Create an effective fire prevention organization by:

• Identifying essential fire prevention and life safety functions
• Understanding how to utilize effective systems and processes
• Creating a plan of action for building or restructuring a fire prevention organization

Are you a fire protection professional - inspector, engineer, safety director, fire marshal, or AHJ - that is faced with the challenge of doing more with less? Are you tired of being reactive instead of proactive in your prevention efforts? Do you feel overwhelmed by the tasks that can never seem to get accomplished? Do you wonder if your team is focusing on the right functions and activities? Is your vision for your department unfulfilled? You need a clear plan of action. This is your action plan!

Identify the seven disciplines for effectiveness and efficiency.

    Based on historical context, current needs, best practices, published standards, and successful fire prevention programs, the Fire Prevention Blueprint identifies seven disciplines critical to the effectiveness of any fire prevention organization.

1. Know your community.
2. Have a plan.
3. Enforce the code.
4. Conduct plan review and field inspections.
5. Investigate fire incidents.
6. Educate the public.
7. Be adequately staffed.

Describe the key functions, features, and components of these disciplines.

    The Fire Prevention Blueprint  addresses the most important questions and highlights the major features of these seven disciplines.

• What are the key elements you must know and understand about your community?. 
• What is a strategy? How can you create one for your community and fire prevention organization?
• How often should you be inspecting the various structures within your community?
• Do you have a clear understanding of  the functions and benefits of plan review? Are you fully aware of your role on the building commissioning team?
• Do you know how to maximize the data gathered from origin and cause investigations?
• Are you providing the most needed, in-demand, and valuable public education programs? 
• Why do people want to work for your organization? How can you attract them? How can you keep them?

Apply practical guidance to implement each discipline. 

    Application of the Fire Prevention Blueprint will enable you to effectively establish, organize, and manage, the fire prevention functions of your organization.  You will be empowered to implement these seven disciplines by:

• Understanding where to get data from, and how to use it.
• Learning how to structure a fire protection and life safety strategy for your community, and form a long-range plan for your fire prevention organization.
• Properly categorizing facility inspections based on hazard risk, operations, and construction features.
• Building an integrated testing plan.
• Following a simple 6-step process for fire scene investigation.
• Knowing the 10-step process for selecting public education programs
• Learning the basic skills for public speaking and teaching.
• Applying Peter Drucker’s 3-step process for time management to your fire prevention organization.
• Following the NFPA recommended 5-step process to determine and justify staffing needs.

Utilize multiple tools, resources, and references for further study and application.

    The goal of  Fire Prevention Blueprint is to provide a basic framework on which to build your organization.  There is an abundance of resources available on each of these seven disciplines and their subtopics. The best tools and resources are referenced in this guide:

• Via footnotes in the text.
• A bonus annex section. 
• A website with direct links to all referenced tools and documents. 

It has taken me more than a decade in this industry to clarify this system for fire prevention organization operation. When I sat down to write this book, I simply wrote down the information I wish I would have had over ten years ago, when I started out on this fire prevention quest!

Buy now on Amazon!

Kindle - $1.99

Print - $6.99

Still not sure if this is right for you? Learn more and subscribe to the mailing list at, www.FPOblueprint.com

How to Build an Effective Fire Prevention Organization

The fire service is an organization that has become known for doing more with less. Less tools, less equipment, less personnel, and less money. Many fire prevention organizations have too few dedicated fire prevention personnel to cover the many square feet of space or miles of geography within their communities. Fire prevention organizations are responsible for the tasks of life safety inspections, fire protection system inspections and testing, plan reviews, investigations, public education, and myriad administrative tasks. All this while also being expected to stay abreast of new technologies, code developments, legislative changes, and planning for the future of the fire prevention organization and its role within the community.   

This workload creates a reactive environment.  One in which fire prevention organization and personnel are functioning only to respond to the most emergent issue, “what needs to be done now”.  These organizations run the risk of being able to only accomplish the minimum required tasks, or less. These conditions can lead to critical fire protection and life safety issues that are allowed to develop until they become a major incident, which results in loss of property or worse, loss of life.

Fire protection professionals - inspectors, investigators, engineers, building safety directors,  the Fire Marshal - did not get into this field to barely get by, or to race to the bottom, or to just work to meet “minimum” standards, or “try their best”, or to do things “the way they’ve always been done”, to simply maintain the status quo. You entered the field because you had a vision to change your world or community by protecting property and saving lives from fire loss.

With the many tasks, responsibilities, and requirements of the fire prevention organization how can this vision be realized? How can the fire prevention organization and its personnel be best utilized to  ensure that they are functioning at optimal effectiveness? Can they know that they are focusing on the right tasks and activities? The solution is a clear plan of action that identifies and provides for the most effective and efficient methods for performing essential fire prevention functions.

With the right plan of action and a laser-like focus on essential tasks your vision for your community and organization can be realized. Your organization can be transformed from just getting by, doing the bare minimum, trying to stay “afloat”,  into a purpose driven, forward advancing, progress making, community changing, organization!

The Fire Prevention Blueprint is your action plan! This book reveals the seven disciplines of effective and efficient fire prevent organizations, and provides practical guidance and resources for their implementation. Fire Prevention Blueprint: Seven Disciplines for Building Effective Fire Prevention Organizations accomplishes this by identifying essential fire prevention and life safety functions, understanding how to utilize effective systems and processes, and providing the framework for creating a structured and organized plan of action.

Don’t let your community become the next mass fire casualty or large fire loss headline. Buy the Fire Prevention Blueprint and transform your fire prevention organization into your vision of what you know it can be!

For more information, resources, and to order the book, visit:

www.FPOblueprint.com

Florida Fire Prevention Code, 6th Edition

January 1, 2018 marked the effective date of the 6th edition of the Florida Fire Prevention Code. The Florida Fire Prevention Code is composed of the 2015 editions of NFPA 1, Fire Code and NFPA 101, Life Safety Code, with Florida specific amendments.

These Florida state specific amendments, local amendments, informal interpretations, past editions, and future notices can be accessed from the Florida Fire Prevention Code page, from the Division of State Fire Marshal. 

The full list of adopted codes, standards, and referenced documents and editions are listed in FAC 69A-60.005.

Douglas True, Fire Prevention at Dade City, has built an amazing set of plan review spreadsheets based on this latest edition of the FFPC. These sheets include plans review checklists and calculations.  This document can be downloaded here, http://bit.ly/FFPC_plansreview.

Florida Fire Prevention Code, 6th Edition can be purchased from BNi Building News.

Braidwood's Fire Prevention Principles

In the year 1824, Edinburgh, Scotland was faced with a fire crises. Major fires were occurring throughout the city, the insurance company fire brigades were less than effective as they lacked discipline and failed to work together. The municipal leaders, not happy with the situation, set out to take control of their fire problem.  So it was that, one of fire service history’s most influential and progressive thinking officers, James Braidwood was selected to become the first Master of Engines for the Edinburgh Fire-Engine Establishment (EFEE).

In 1830, Braidwood wrote, “Not having been able to find any work on fire engines in the English language, I have been led to publish the following remarks, in the hope of inducing others to give further information on the subject.” These “remarks” became the 138-page book, On the Construction of Fire Engines and Apparatus: The Training of Firemen, and the Method of Proceeding in Cases of Fire.

Braidwood's book covers much more than how to build a fire engine. It is a guide to building a fire service. He details fire engine use, maintenance, equipment, and water supply, he discusses hiring practices, firefighter training, and self-escape.  Most importantly, Braidwood's book provides one of the earliest guides "on the causes of fires, and the means of preventing them".

His fire prevention plan can be broken down into the following seven principles:

1. Know your community.
2. Have a plan.
3. Enforce the code.
4. Conduct plan review and field inspections.
5. Investigate fire incidents.
6. Educate the public.
7. Ensure adequate staffing.

#1 Know your community --

“...every exertion should be used to keep the firemen on good terms with the populace.”

“He should also make himself well acquainted with the different parts of the town in which he may be appointed to act, and notice the declivities of the different streets, etc. He will find this knowledge of great advantage.”

“...[in examining the Table, 1824-1829] serious fires decrease as the number of alarms increase...the cause of so many alarms...arise from foul chimneys...the number of houses, shops, and assessable places...is 29,000...average of fires for...five years is about 105...cases of foul chimneys...being one fire to each 276 houses.”

#2 Have a Plan --

“The person having the principal charge of the engines should frequently turn over in his mind what might be the best plan, in such and such circumstances, supposing a fire to take place.  By frequently ruminating on the subject, he will find himself, when suddenly turned our of bed at night, much more fit for his task than if he had never considered the matter at all.”

#3 Enforce the code --

“As almost all fires arise from carelessness in one shape or another, it is of the utmost importance that every master of a family should persevere in rigidly enjoining, and enforcing on those under him, the necessity of observing the utmost possible care, in preventing such calamities, which, in nineteen cases out of twenty, are the result of remissness or inattention.”

#4 Conduct Plan Review and Field Inspections --

“Great carelessness is frequently exhibited by builders, when erecting at one time two or three houses connected by mutual gables, by not carrying up the gables or party-walls with a skew on the outside, so as to divide the roofs.”

“It is not uncommon thing, too, to find houses divided only by lath and standard partitions, without a single brick in them.”

“In theatres, that part of the house which includes the stage and scenery should be carefully divided from that where the audience assembles.”

“The subject of fire-proof buildings might occupy a considerable space...To make a building fire-proof, the stairs must be of stone, and the doors of iron…”

“...the next thing to be considered is a supply of water.”

#5 Investigate Fire Incidents --

“The most immense hazard is frequently incurred for the most trifling indulgences, and much property is annually destroyed, and valuable lives often lost, because a few thoughtless individuals cannot deny themselves the gratification of reading in bed with a candle beside them.”

“...leaving their houses to the care of children.”

“Intoxication is also a disgraceful and frequent cause of fire.”

“...approaching with lighted candles too near a bed or window curtains.”

“...going under a bed with a lighted candle, and placing a screen full of clothes too near the fire.”

“...cinders falling between the joints of the outer and inner hearths.”

“...foul chimneys.”

#6 Educate the public --

"When a fire actually takes place, every one should endeavor to be as cool and collected as possible…”

“The moment it is ascertained that fire has actually taken place, notice should be sent to the nearest station where there is a fire-engine.”

“...shut all the doors and windows as close as possible, which greatly retards the progress of the flames…”

#7 Ensure Adequate Staffing --

“...however complete in its apparatus and equipments, must depend for its efficiency on the state of training and discipline of the firemen.  Wherever there is inexperience, want of co-operation, or confusion amongst them, the utmost danger is to be apprehended in the event of fire.”

“The description of men from whom I have been in the habit of selecting firemen are slaters, house-carpenters, masons, plumbers, and smiths.”

“In each company there is one captain, one sergeant, four pioneers, and six or eight firemen.”

James Braidwood would eventually leave Edinburgh for London where he became  

Superintendent of the London Fire Engine Establishment. At the age of 62 the "Father of the British Fire Serivce", James Braidwood, was killed in a building collapse, while fighting a large warehouse fire.

In recent years standards such as NFPA 1730, NFPA 1452, NFPA 1300 have been created to discuss and present the "new" concept of community risk reduction or CRR.  I share the story of James Braidwood from 1830 to demonstrate that the principles of fire prevention, and effective fire prevention organizations have been around for a long time. Though the terminology may change, new buzz word may come and go, these seven tenants for effective community fire prevention remain the same.