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IAFF 1479 / Merced City
Firefighter's Association |
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"Training, Public Assist, Mutual Aid" EMS calls hazmat
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Training Training includes not only fire, but also confined space, extrication, night drills, hazmat, EMS, drivers course, and Fire Officer classes. Fire training varies, but always includes pulling hose and flowing water. Some training is based on meeting the time set in the performance standards, other fire training is scenario based. This structure is 30% involved, what do we do. Local 1479 protects a city of over 60,000 people so the majority of our fire training is based on structural fire fighting, but we also have large areas of wildland on the outer edges of town, additionally every year we are called upon to go out of town and assist on major wildland incidents. With that in mind we also train locally on wildland firefighting techniques and wildland structure protection, a completely different way of fighting fire. Confined space and rescue training varies significantly to prepare us for the unknowns of the next call. Tanker trucks, or sewer lines in which almost every member of the department gets involved to insure the safety of fire personnel, the victims, and bystanders. Elevated rescues and creek rescues are also manpower intensive but since these do not qualify as confined space, the safety criteria is not as stringent. No matter what the scenario when it comes to confined space rescue training we have an opportunity to put every piece of apparatus into play, and also discover new ways to use almost every piece of equipment carried on the apparatus. EMS training is not limited to classroom and mannequins. EMS training comes into play in almost every aspect of all the training mentioned above. Rescue whether it is above ground, or confined space includes EMS, and vehicle extrication requires not only removal of the patient but also medical treatment before, during and after the process. Every call we respond to, and every day we train the potential for a medical emergency exists and out training reflects this. Night drills, extrication, hazmat, driver training, and fire officer classes are also some of the areas we train. Train hard, train real, train often, and when duty calls all the training will come into play, operations run smooth, patients are transported, and buildings are saved, plus everyone of us from Local 1479 that reported to work in the morning go home the next day. Public Assist Public assist are those calls that do not fit into the other categories. Smoke alarm beeping in the middle of the night, foot stuck in the toilet, head stuck in the gate, or ring stuck on the finger. These are not priority calls but when you call 911, if it is not a police emergency then you can be sure fire will be sent. Mutual Aid We all here of the California wildfires that burn every year, and the earthquakes that happen every decade. Throughout the state when the fire gets big, or the shaking gets hard, the state has a mutual aid agreement in which departments small and large, near and far send available personnel and apparatus to aid in mitigating the emergency.
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