Chief Weston and Deputy Germaine designed an interesting Officer Management Drill utilizing a realistic fire scenario program we discovered on-line. The program allows you to take photographs of buildings or items within your community from all angles, add realistic changing smoke and fire conditions and assemble them into a movie like fire scenario that can be stopped or progressed as you wish. At our Officers Incident Command Drill, we conducted two scenarios, one of a commercial establishment in North Carver and one at a residential home in Center Carver. Officers were given command vests representing each Command function we utilize on our fire ground. They were required to use their portable radio as any communications they made had to utilize radio terminology and each was given five minutes to make notes on sizing up the incident. The computer simulated incident could be stopped at any time, with increasing and fire conditions displayed as the incident progressed. We set up the room with one screen showing the simulation, while our smart board displayed a google earth image of the area and our Incident Command Board and Fire Dispatcher, Matt Barrington tracked Vehicle movements. This allowed Command and the Water Supply Officer to make decisions on proper water supply locations and describing water supply set up. This was our 2nd crack at this homemade teaching tool and overall it was a big success, for low dollars. When one Officer is describing their function, other Officers can make mental notes on how they would’ve handled the situation and prepare for their functions to be utilized. The exercise gets everyone thinking, critiquing themselves and in the end, hopefully raises the bar! (Photo’s by Fire Chief, Craig Weston)
