Advanced Fire Fighting Refresher Course

Lesson 1 • Personal Protective Equipment Review

Covers PPE inspection, donning sequences, and fit verification for structural and proximity gear. Establishes baseline safety compliance for all subsequent field operations.

Lesson 2 • Firefighter Self-Rescue Techniques

Drills emergency egress, MAYDAY declaration, and rapid intervention readiness. Builds individual survival capability before team tactics are introduced.

Lesson 3 • Accountability and Personnel Tracking

Reviews tag systems, passport accountability, and electronic tracking tools. Ensures every firefighter is locatable throughout all operational phases.

Lesson 1 • Combustion Chemistry Refresher

Reviews the fire tetrahedron, fuel types, and ignition thresholds relevant to modern fire loads. Grounds tactical decisions in chemical reality.

Lesson 2 • Structural Response to Fire Loading

Covers how wood, steel, concrete, and lightweight construction fail under fire conditions. Directly informs collapse zone establishment and interior operations timing.

Lesson 3 • Modern Fire Behaviour Phenomena

Examines flashover, backdraught, smoke explosion, and rapid fire progression in contemporary structures. Prepares firefighters to recognise pre-event indicators.

Lesson 4 • Reading Buildings for Fire Risk

Teaches pre-incident building assessment including construction type, occupancy load, and void spaces. Links building knowledge to tactical planning in later chapters.

Lesson 1 • Hydraulic Principles for Firefighters

Reviews pressure, flow, friction loss, and elevation gain calculations. Provides the mathematical foundation for pump operator decisions.

Lesson 2 • Water Supply Sourcing and Relay

Covers hydrant drafting, tanker shuttle operations, and relay pumping for rural and urban scenarios. Ensures uninterrupted supply regardless of infrastructure availability.

Lesson 3 • Hose Loads and Deployment

Drills flat, horseshoe, and minuteman loads for rapid deployment in structural and wildland contexts. Reduces setup time and kinking errors under operational stress.

Lesson 1 • Defensive Operations and Collapse Zones

Establishes master stream positioning, collapse zone distances, and transition from offensive to defensive mode. Protects personnel when interior operations become untenable.

Lesson 2 • Ventilation Coordination

Reviews positive pressure, negative pressure, and hydraulic ventilation timing relative to attack lines. Prevents unintended fire spread caused by premature or uncoordinated venting.

Lesson 3 • Interior Hose Line Operations

Drills hose line advancement, door control, and nozzle technique for interior structural attack. Emphasises coordinated movement with ventilation timing.

Lesson 4 • Search and Rescue Operations

Covers primary and secondary search patterns, victim packaging, and removal under zero-visibility conditions. Directly tied to accountability and self-rescue skills from Chapter 1.

Lesson 1 • Entrapment Avoidance and Survival

Drills fire shelter deployment, safety zone sizing, and escape route maintenance under entrapment conditions. Provides last-resort survival skills for worst-case scenarios.

Lesson 2 • Hand Line and Engine Tactics

Drills direct, indirect, and parallel attack methods using hand tools and engine-mounted systems. Matches tactic selection to fire behaviour and resource availability.

Lesson 3 • Ten Standard Firefighting Orders

Reinforces the ten standard orders and eighteen watch-out situations as non-negotiable safety anchors. Directly reduces entrapment and burnover risk in field operations.

Lesson 4 • Wildland-Urban Interface Safety

Addresses structure triage, defensible space assessment, and ember intrusion prevention in WUI zones. Bridges wildland and structural firefighting competencies.

Lesson 1 • Hazmat Incident Command Integration

Positions hazmat operations within the incident command structure including sector assignments and specialist requests. Ensures seamless coordination with broader ICS.

Lesson 2 • Hazmat Recognition and Identification

Reviews placard systems, shipping papers, container shapes, and occupancy clues for hazmat identification. Builds recognition speed critical for initial scene decisions.

Lesson 3 • Initial Isolation and Protective Actions

Drills isolation distance establishment, evacuation vs. shelter-in-place decisions, and perimeter control. Prevents secondary casualties from exposure during initial response.

Lesson 1 • Confined Space Rescue Awareness

Reviews permit-required space identification, atmospheric monitoring, and non-entry rescue techniques. Prevents firefighter fatalities from unauthorised confined space entry.

Lesson 2 • Trench Rescue Operations Awareness

Identifies trench failure types, exclusion zone establishment, and sloping and shoring basics. Keeps firefighters safe while awaiting technical rescue specialists.

Lesson 3 • Rope Rescue Fundamentals

Refreshes knot tying, anchor systems, and low-angle rescue techniques for firefighter and victim removal. Supports both technical rescue and self-rescue applications.

Lesson 4 • Vehicle and Machinery Extrication

Drills stabilisation, glass management, and hydraulic tool use for vehicle extrication operations. Integrates patient packaging and handoff to EMS personnel.

Lesson 1 • Demobilisation and After-Action Review

Establishes systematic demobilisation sequencing and structured after-action review methodology. Closes the operational loop and feeds lessons into future training.

Lesson 2 • Incident Action Planning

Builds incident action plans including objectives, tactics, safety messages, and resource assignments. Translates strategic goals into executable operational tasks.

Lesson 3 • Radio Communications and Reporting

Drills clear-text radio discipline, progress reports, and emergency traffic protocols on fireground channels. Reduces communication failures that cause tactical errors.

Lesson 4 • Multi-Agency Coordination

Covers unified command setup, mutual aid integration, and interoperability with law enforcement and EMS. Prepares firefighters for large-scale or multi-jurisdictional incidents.