Riding the Seat.....

How many departments have requirements to ride the front seat and act as an officer?

At work we always have an officer on shift or at least a senior firefighter as the acting for the day so its not an issue, but at the vollie house, its anyone's guess as to who may be riding the seat to any particular call.

We are a combination department and have a Captain on each shift who rides the seat of the engine and is in command for the day but as far as volunteer response, we respond from home most times (unless we are riding extra and staffing a truck or two) and its hard to guess who will be the acting officer.  Writing this off as a downfall of the volunteer fire service would be ignorant.  There are plenty of great volunteer fire departments that do have requirements in place to act as an officer, but there are also plenty of great volunteer departments that don't.

Among other things, one of the most important skills a firefighter who will be acting as an officer can have is good radio communications.  At our department, sometimes the highest qualified individual will end up being the driver.  On MVAs this is no big deal really as the driver can still get out and function as a member of the team or take command but when you're driving the wagon, you can't effectively supervise your crew inside the structure.  Therefore, the responsibility falls to the member riding the seat.  Hopefully you will get someone with a few years under their belt who has a good idea of what it takes, but on occasion you may not. 

I know at our department, everyone wants to ride the front seat.  Winding up the Q, stomping on the airhorns, and talking on the radio seems like every probies dream. 

How do you train new members on radio procedures?  How do you correct bad habits with older members?  Do you just expect the rookies to listen to how the other guys do it and emulate that?

Most of our older members have a tendency to say nothing but " truck XXX is on scene."  Quite a few times I have gotten back from a run and say, "Why the hell were you talking so damn much on the radio when you got on scene?"  When all I said was, "XXX is on the scene, two car MVA, one overturned in the ditch, we will be investigating."

Make sure that your guys who are acting as officers know that the apparatus responding behind them need to know what they are facing and should have a quick mental picture from the initial on scene report.

This is especially important on fires.  Even if you live under a rock, I'm sure you would give a report as you're pulling up to a rocking fire something like this, " Engine XXX is on scene, fire showing."  What about where the closest hydrant is? How about other hazards or obstructions?  Or, if you don't have pre arranged assignments for responding apparatus, a quick order to the second due to grab the plug at the intersection, etc?

Another point to be made as far as communications goes, is tell your members to leave their bedroom voices at home.  Some of our guys speak so softly into the radio you wonder if they think it will explode in their hand if they speak in a normal tone of voice.  It's common sense that you don't want to be yelling into a radio but there is a difference between freaking out on the radio and speaking in a clear, authoritative voice over the radio.


As the header on the main page says, this blog is pretty much just a collection of random thoughts so I'm sorry if they haven't made too much sense.  I'm 40 hours into a 60 hour shift (trades suck at first, but when you don't have to come to work for two weeks they are great!) and my brain is pretty scrambled.  Hopefully soon I will try to elaborate further on what it takes to RIDE THE SEAT.