Knowing your district is VITAL to succesful fireground operations. You may be the best hose stretcher, tactical officer, and firefighter around but if you do not get there all of those skills are for nothing. However knowing your district is not enough, you have to be very familiar with your second, third, and maybe even 4th due!
This is a lesson that has been reinforced to me hard recently, as I have been moved to a part of town I am very unfamiliar with. Sometimes the maps (whether hand drawn, or GIS) is not enough. This (hypothetically of course) could lead to you running a fire in your second due and not knowing 100% were you are going and ending up 2nd due. Sure you still get to do some good fireground work but you should have been on the initial attack line and….well Im rambling and this in no way really happened (lol).
But seriously knowing the roads, buildings, different routes, etc. is very important and sometimes gets very over looked.
So this month dedicate some training time, to driving your district and the surrounding districts, get in the map book, get in your buildings, and take some different routes back to the station to see some streets you may never see. Also no matter how good you know your district always look it up in the map book, or your mapping system it will get you used to using it and will make finding locations easier under the gun.
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As usual thanks for reading, spread the word, and STAY SAFE!
Average Jake Firefighter Blog 