Ask yourself a simple question. “Are my burn rooms white? Or black?”

If the answer is white, you need to ask yourself a much more critical question. “Are we burning too hot?” My guess is the honest answer will be yes.

And when your honest answer is yes, ask one more question. “Why?”

That is the most basic “black and white” question. Why are you burning so hot?  What, exactly, is the point? Because I can almost guaranty that you are damaging gear and quite possibly, subjecting your recruits and, perhaps more critically, your stokers to unrealistic conditions that they should frankly never encounter on a real fire ground. If such conditions developed on the ground, say in a residence, the structure would undoubtedly be compromised, and the firefighter should have already evacuated.

Remember, I don’t care how hard you try, you will not burn down one of our live fire training structures. But I can also guaranty that you can create environments that are critically damaging to your gear and yourselves. And it simply isn’t necessary.

Two items that should be of interest to all fire training instructors:

• The new 2012 NFPA 1403 Standard on Live Fire Training Evolutions includes important requirements and procedures for documenting and controlling fuel loads and burn room conditions.
• Secondly, NFPA, in cooperation with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, have sponsored a webinar reporting the conclusions of a study into The Hazard Assessment of Fire Service Training Fires.

We encourage you to promote the spirit of both resources as you offer the best and safest training.