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I think it might be a good idea to put together some form of vehicle recovery and equipment safety course for fire departments that are tasked with brush fires. The course (or informational packet) should include use of tree savers and snatch blocks, winch operation and safety, straps (with no hooks), high lift use and safety, and basic tools to have on hand.

Yesterday we had a huge brush fire on the back side of the mountain with 5 area and DCR fire departments responding and helicopters doing ariel drops. I was working with the nieghbor building a fire break behind their house when one of the local brush trucks came through the woods. Darryl and Darryl tried going over a 20" log and got it jammed between the frame and rear wheels, which broke the driveshaft. They had no recovery equipment except for a PTO winch on the front of the truck. They also had no clue how to operate it. Once they figured it out they just wrapped the cable around the tree and tried to yank. At this point I stepped in and had them stop since they weren't going anywhere except to do more damage to the vehicle. I ran home and grabbed the jeep, recovery gear and tools to get them out. I dropped the driveshaft, then used the high lift to get the weight of the truck off the log so it could be pulled out. At this point they were able to drive out in front wheel drive.

Wow I guess this is something I always figured they knew how to do. Simple to do and the course materials are already out there from Warn and Hi-Lift.

Any volunteers to coordinate and start a program?

Lets contact our members that are are firefighters and see if they can help set this up. They should have the connections to get the word out to all the fire departments.

Coordinate with Cowls and all the local fire companies and use Brushy Mountain as the training area.

I've seen that forest fire supervisor truck guy driving around, I know few fire fighters here and there too.

Being a full time fire fighter I do agree that we are not ever trained on vehicle recovery type stuff usually just vehicle stabilization. We are given many tools and never showed the many uses for them. Most times we don't go out to recover anything. Our job is to mitigate dangerous situations most times just taking people away from a bad situation.

We have had our forestry towed out of the woods before and when a couple of us who wheel found out about it we taught a basic recovery class to our department.

The problem is going to be getting to each department. You would be better of going to the state level and talking to the instructors to set up a course for the state to offer to any interested departments. With NH they have state classes that are offered to all departments and individuals at a reduced cost. They send out class announcements all the time. Things like ice rescue and confined space rescue we train on every year. We added our class on to the approval process to be able to operate our forestry trucks.

I will talk to the NH academy and ask if this sound like something they would want to set up.

Very nice

Can we get the other states to offer the Forestry Truck recovery training?

Jsands wrote:Being a full time fire fighter I do agree that we are not ever trained on vehicle recovery type stuff usually just vehicle stabilization. We are given many tools and never showed the many uses for them. Most times we don't go out to recover anything. Our job is to mitigate dangerous situations most times just taking people away from a bad situation.

We have had our forestry towed out of the woods before and when a couple of us who wheel found out about it we taught a basic recovery class to our department.

The problem is going to be getting to each department. You would be better of going to the state level and talking to the instructors to set up a course for the state to offer to any interested departments. With NH they have state classes that are offered to all departments and individuals at a reduced cost. They send out class announcements all the time. Things like ice rescue and confined space rescue we train on every year. We added our class on to the approval process to be able to operate our forestry trucks.

I will talk to the NH academy and ask if this sound like something they would want to set up.

I was hoping you'd chime in.

The UFWDA Driver Awareness Program is really in depth covers all that is needed and has workbooks and and teaching material. This is the Material I used to put together the Class for the Portsmouth Fire Department.

As a State Instructor I am skeptical that the best route is to have the academy handle teaching the classes. I would agree that the Academy would be a great resource to spread the word of upcoming classes and offerings.

The State Fire Academy is in turmoil budget wise and committted with the Classes they have to offer.

In my mind the best way yo go about this would be to find a location, put together the cadrie of insstructors and publiscize it with a cap on participants. 16-20. See how the first goes then offer additional if there is a waiting list or increased desire.

I do know that the NHFA offers a wrecker recovery class that many fire fighters have particpated with but I am not sure the last offering.

This is a great idea and really is a vocation on its own.