Frontline Safety
8 hours
The Frontline Safety course is a one-day, participant-centered, instructor-led training. The activities are designed by fire fighters, for fire fighters to address key issues related to fire fighter health and safety. Fire fighters, frontline supervisors and safety officers are encouraged to attend.
This course includes a personal safety survey, a discussion of the truths and myths associated with fire fighter safety, injuries and fatalities and practice identifying safe and unsafe acts. The course incorporates the NIOSH Fire Fighter Fatality Project, and includes discussions of some of the causes of fire fighter injuries and fatalities such as normalization of deviance, avoiding the passenger mode, courageous self-leadership and situational awareness.
During the course, participants work through a variety of small-group activities, discuss the Frontline Safety model of contributing factors to fire fighter near misses and injuries and fatalities. This course also gives emergency responders the opportunity to learn new strategies they can use to help decrease injury and death in their organizations. A special cadre of IAFF Master Instructors has been trained to deliver the course.
Course Goal
The overall goal of the Frontline Safety program is to better balance the safety and lives of fire fighters with the overall mission mitigating incidents. The purpose of the course is to help decrease the number of injuries and deaths by helping fire fighters become safety leaders and advocates for safer behavior.
Course Objectives
The goal of this course is to demonstrate fire fighters can act with safety as the primary value, which may in time reduce the number of fire fighter injuries and fatalities that occur each year.
To meet this goal, the IAFF gives participants an opportunity to:
- Discuss the factors that contribute to fire fighter health and safety.
- Identify programs which provide information about the causes of fire fighter injuries and fatalities:
- National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s Fire Fighter Fatality Investigation and Prevention Program
- Examine your values as an individual, the shared values of your crew/company and the shared values within your organization that affect safety.
- Apply strategies for advancing fire fighter health and safety.
Performance Measures
As this program is values (or attitude) based, it does not include formal performance measures. Alternatively, action planning has been incorporated to improve the likelihood that participants will use what they have learned.