Discussions to Improve the Fire Service
Date
Spring 2023
Type of Culminating Activity
Student presentation
Abstract
Wildland firefighting is dangerous, both mentally and physically. In order to increase firefighter safety, we can either study previous fatality fires to better understand what went wrong or train for unexpected situations in the field. My main goal for this project is to provide a space for discussion regarding the culture within wildland firefighting, which will take place within my 10-person fire crew during the early season. I will be creating presentations and pulling different ideas from research about fire firefighters and books that detail certain mistakes firefighters have made in the past. We can then implement what we have learned into our daily training sessions. The primary stakeholders are my crew and the other crews within the Boise region, and the families of the firefighters on my crew. Other stakeholders include local governments and the families of firefighters because they have an invested interest in keeping everyone safe. I realized the Action approach suits my capstone proposal because I will be trying to improve workplace practices outside my duties as an employee. My work consists of showing training videos that detail different safety issues and how to go about improving them, and presentations that detail specific fatality fires that have happened in the past by utilizing case studies. I aim to incorporate these presentations and videos into our daily morning briefings where we discuss the weather and plans for the day. Even though this will be training, I want to incorporate my other crew mates so I am not simply “managing” this project. By including my other crew members, I can increase the crew’s understanding of each presentation and crew morale.
Degree Program
Bachelor of Applied Science
Mentors
Margaret Sass, J.D., Ed.D.
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