What strategies do you use to ensure that your Fire Department stays up to date with the latest technologies and best practices?

Question

Robert Verhelst · Answer

This is something in the fire service that we always have, as we always have the latest and greatest and best practices. And a lot of times, it's great to understand the basics. And that's what we always say, is understand the basics first, because you never know when the latest greatest or the technology is going to fail. And you have to go back to the roots of what your training was. And we always maintain, I mean, there's a fire engineering Firehouse magazines that really keep us up-to-date the UL testing. Is also another thing that helps us to understand the materials that are being used in buildings, but a lot of times it comes from experiences that comes from the situations that people get into and they tell their story afterwards of how they utilize certain equipment, how do they utilize certain Personnel to be able to make it work? And I think that's how we stay up-to-date on most of the new technologies needed and the best practices.

Dave Robertson · Answer

What strategies do I use to ensure that my fire department states update with latest technologies and best practices? There's a number of things that I do that really anybody else can do. Reading a bunch, staying on top of all the literature, making sure that I'm into all of the trade magazines, all the digital magazines, getting information from all those sources. I attend a number of conferences as well. Keeping alive that professional socialization is a great way to stay on top of things. And typically a lot of those conferences also have a trade show aspect and it's in that trade show that you see the latest technologies and within the classes at the conferences and the speakers that you hear about best practices. So that's another way and another place. I also empower staff to go to these conferences and push them towards trying to learn as much as they can, staying on top of technology trends and best practice trends as much as they can. They're just another set of eyes and ears, usually a great set of eyes and ears. They bring a fresh perspective to what they've seen. They bring it back to the fire department. So from a number of sources that I'll draw to stay on top of things.

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"What strategies do you use to ensure that your Fire Department stays up to date with the latest technologies and best practices?"