BA Refresher Courses

[scud]

I am currently trying to compile a two day BA refresher course for my Service. Do any other Local Authority Brigades run these (As we all should be doing!) ? What do you include on them ?  Any information would be gratefully received

[Rich]

Hi,

In my brigade when I was retained we had a BA refresher course every 2 years on a weekend and it consisted of:

Day 1: In the morning we would go through the H&S legislation/set decription and SOP's
In the afternoon we would do an ambient BA guideline drill.

Day2: We would do an ambient entrapped procedure drill and offset procedure in the morning followed by a heat and smoke (and some real flames) rescue drill in the afternoon.

Then it was home for tea and medals - they don't run the course anymore as our BA training requirement can be met through operational wears.  As long as we have 4 heat and smoke wears in a year then we don't have to go to training centre!

Shame really as I used to really enjoy the course!!

[fireftrm]

We no longer run a refresher course, under maintenance of competence training si only given to people who need training and not as a norm for all. So we now run competence assessments, annually for all BA wearers. The assessment is the only real opportunity for the BA wearer to be observed by a competent BA assessor. Training  needs identified at any time, by Watch based assessors, or BA Instructional staff, would then lead to BA skills training provision for that INDIVIDUAL.

[Fireguy1230]

Still run them annually with us, for all retained personnel.

 Usually takes the form of a one day event with the morning being taken up with lectures and recapping fire behaviour, door entry, branch handling etc. Then a couple of firefighting and search and rescue exercises in the afternoon. Always a really good day.

 If a retained firefighter misses two consecutive years of refresher courses, he/she is removed from BA duties until such a time as they do attend.

 Les

[scud]

Thanks for your input, Looks like a day of input followed by a live fire wear on day one and day two a guideline wear followed by a fire wear.  Thanks.