Members of the Potsdam Fire Department train at least once a month, usually the third Monday of the month, on different topics that pertain to incidents that they may respond to. These monthly trainings are normally 3-4 hours long.

This month members competed against their fellow firefighters in a friendly game of firefighter jeopardy. The topics included Oh Say Can You “C”, Fire Behavior, Ground Ladders, Ropes & Knots, Water Supply, Hose & Appliances, Forcible Entry, Wildland Fires, and Salvage & Overhaul. Members quickly learned that there is a lot of knowledge that is taught in Firefighter1 that you can quickly lose if you do not take the time to keep training on the topics.

The second half of the training was a hands-on drill. Interior firefighters were thrown the task to complete the Naked Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA) Drill. The Naked SCBA Drill is a drill designed to have the firefighters demonstrate their knowledge of their SCBA by returning it to full functional status as well as donning the SCBA while their vision obscured.

The steps taken with this drill were that the chiefs and officers stripped down the SCBAs (tangled straps, disconnected connections, turned on bypass, and PASS device were activated). Then the firefighters were blindfolded using their hoods so that they could not see anything in front of them. They were then placed in front of the stripped SCBA, and told to fix all the issues with their SCBA in a timely manner, while wearing their structural firefighter gloves, showing their knowledge of the air pack. They then had to donn the SCBA, while blindfolded, and the event was complete when the firefighter was on air.