OF CURRENT INTEREST

The value of police/fire cross-training
Learning how the other works is beneficial to both agencies and the community they serve.
~ by Christa Miller

Mention the term "cross-training" to police officers and firefighters, and you'll likely get eye rolls, groans, and vocal explanations as to why it hasn't worked before, why it can't work now and why it never will. Although some communities have successfully merged functions to create "public safety" agencies, many others found the process drained time, money and morale. As a result, they carefully re-segregated police and fire departments. However, because the federal government has made agency interoperability a cornerstone of homeland security, and because technological interoperability will take years for many agencies to deploy, cross-training deserves another look.

A better understanding of roles
"The fire and police departments are too independent of each other," says John Zadelak, an instructor with the Cook County (Illinois) Sheriff's Office. A firefighter for seven years, sheriff's officer for 21 years, and member of the hazardous materials (hazmat) incident command system (ICS), Zadelak would like to see more inter-service training. "For example, the fire department runs the decon[tamination] line at a terrorist incident," he says. "They're thinking in terms of life safety, not preserving evidence like clothes."

Law enforcement officers assigned to crowd control are usually unfamiliar with decon lines and how they function, he adds. However, if officers were trained in decon procedures, they could and should review evidence, identify victims, or spot perpetrators on the decon line. Likewise, firefighters able to recognize officers' needs will better understand their requests.

It sounds simple, but isn't always. Kent (Washington) training supervisor Sgt. Frank Connelly says, "In most communities, the police and fire departments work well together, but politics can sometimes interfere with that relationship." He cites cases in which unions' bargaining units or even administrators' personal issues have sabotaged the way agencies work together. The classic example: fire departments automatically blocking traffic at a crash scene, versus police wanting to keep traffic moving. "You need to be able to negotiate, not make demands," says Connelly.

More than just teaching the services how to accommodate each other's needs, cross-training can help agencies learn to function under a unified incident command. Fire departments have worked with this structure for years, and police are finding that the more situations call for a joint response - for instance, clandestine drug lab incidents - the more they need to share control, for everyone's benefit. "It's not about jurisdictions," Zadelak says, "but about all working together toward a common goal."

Connelly and Jeff Chudwin, Olympia Fields (Illinois) police chief, agree firefighters are the natural choice to help police learn the unified command structure. "The fire departments have been doing this for 30 years," says Chudwin, "and it's mutually beneficial for them to tell us what works and what doesn't, instead of us taking another 30 years to figure it out for ourselves."

Connelly adds that fire incident response isn't based on jumping from call to call, so firefighting is more training oriented. Firefighters also are team oriented instead of backup-oriented, and can help police learn to think in terms of teamwork. "One of the best practices we're focusing on is asking officers to slow down, think about the resources another department has that they could use," says Connelly. "Very rarely does a situation occur in which you don't have the time to think first."

He adds that success sometimes comes simply from a different perspective. One of the challenges of ICS is that command may pass back and forth between police and fire numerous times during an incident. An obvious answer, Connelly says, is to set up command centers side by side. "Yet these simple types of things get messed up if they're not trained for," he adds.

Illinois police and fire will soon have an opportunity to find out for themselves what cross-training can do. The Illinois Police Chiefs Association and Illinois Sheriff's Association recently formed the Illinois Law Enforcement Alarm System (ILEAS), modeled in part after the state's Mutual Aid Box Alarm System (MABAS) for fire departments. ILEAS puts the unified-command issue at the forefront of police response.

Just as MABAS brings together fire agencies and apparatus to respond to large-scale incidents in other jurisdictions, an ILEAS mutual-aid request can bring police assistance from throughout the state. The Illinois Legislature passed a bill granting full police powers to any law enforcement officer responding anywhere in the state to a mutual-aid request. "In theory, the whole state could be called out," says Chudwin.

He also believes cross-training will benefit Illinois police and fire responders, because of operational differences between ILEAS and MABAS. For instance, under MABAS, fire departments' policy is to send supervising officers with each responding apparatus. However, responding police units have no such requirement. "Absent supervision, individuals may start approaching any given situation according to what they think is right," says Chudwin, "and not necessarily what needs to be done." Cross-training ideally eliminates the individual's reaction in favor of a unified, informed response. "You can afford to be unconventional when you understand convention," says Chudwin. "But it is hazardous to improvise in a moment of life or death."

Training at the academy level
Chudwin says academy-level cross-training is the best way to inure new recruits to the practice. Cook County started this process four years ago. Zadelak, who has certification through the state fire marshal's office, has been able to incorporate two very different types of training with approval from the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board.

One of Zadelak's courses takes 40 hours to train recruits from both services, as well as area SWAT teams, on using the Scott AirPak while performing building evacuations and rescues. "We have six major court branches and a number of other sensitive buildings in Chicago," he explains. "If a disgruntled individual sets a fire, the teams need to be able to wear this equipment and still operate as they normally would."

The training consists of sending trainees through a heated, smoky burn tower, performing mock rescues, and using cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and automatic external defibrillators (AEDs). "We aren't training them to be firefighters, but simply teaching each profession what the other needs to do," says Zadelak.

He adds that the academy continues to approve new training. In particular, an antiterrorism program will include information for top officials on the physical requirements of operating inside terrorism-related hot zones: decontamination, how to don and doff Level A or B hazardous materials gear, and physical exertion.

Training at the field level
Outside the academy, Cook County police and fire departments train together on other aspects of their day-to-day jobs. For police, firefighters continue airpack training while police teach firefighters about designer drugs and clan labs. "Nine out of 10 clan labs are discovered by the fire department when citizens call them about a 'strange odor,'" explains Zadelak. "They're familiar with the hazardous materials inside the lab, but the police go over the safety and evidentiary issues. That way the firefighters can still concentrate on treating victims, but they have a greater situational awareness." Other police-to-fire training has included gang recognition, so firefighters on ambulance runs can identify tattoos, clothing, or other markers, and judge risk for themselves.

Kent's police and fire departments have taken their cooperative efforts further. Trainers from both agencies share a training center built with a bond issue. Connelly says the physical proximity is just the beginning in a community whose needs, even before 9/11, virtually demand a strong interservice relationship. "Kent's population of about 85,000 swells during the day because of all the Boeing employees," he says. "We also have some major rail lines that transport dangerous chemicals through the city, and a strong manufacturing base. [Of all possible scenarios], hazmat incidents are the most likely."

These issues are built into Kent's planned terrorism training, which Connelly expects will have something to do with local chemical freight cars and region-specific terrorist issues. "Out here we have the Animal Liberation Front, the Anarchists, and other organizations. A terrorist doesn't need to be Middle Eastern to pose a threat."

Kent's field training isn't yet up and running, so trainers are focusing on tabletop ICS exercises and incident critiques. "We expect the ICS training to be in place by fall," Connelly says. "The active field training and mock exercises won't happen for probably another year." However, the tabletop scenarios are written to be as realistic as possible. For example, current fire department policy prohibits firefighters from entering a scene unless police have cleared it. "We're creating some scenarios with only an 80-percent-safe scene, where bad things will happen if the firefighters don't go in," he says, "like a rapid deployment in which an officer down will die without medical attention."

Command staff will also be trained. The department plans to include command and first-level supervisors at the tabletop exercises, as well as senior officers who may be needed to fill supervisory roles. As more training is completed, it will filter through the rank and file level. "But understanding roles is the most important thing for everyone, even if they don't train together," says Connelly.

Chudwin warns that departments shouldn't stop with tabletop scenarios, even in limited-budget circumstances. "At the actual incident, people will be feeling extreme stress, and that's going to affect their actions," he says. "You should not focus solely on the theoretical, or the practical will fall by the wayside." Additionally, although Zadelak says field training in Cook County is well received because it's executed with no money or contracts, and is often spur of the moment, Chudwin argues that the best training includes goals, objectives, and planning; otherwise it can be disparate due to many individual ideas.

Kent's field training will include mandatory ridealongs. "They won't be just for personal contacts," says Connelly, "but also for officers and firefighters to learn about each other's roles and needs during certain incidents." Although new fire recruits must ride along with police officers for one shift, and new police recruits will be required to reciprocate, Connelly says regular ridealongs wouldn't be necessary - or practical due to restrictions in manpower. Although a hiring freeze was recently lifted, limited resources make it difficult for officers to attend training, and ridealongs are considered a luxury compared to more immediate training, such as for officer safety. To that end, the department is looking into online training, especially on hazmat issues.

When looking at the large scale, it may be easy to overlook details, for example, personal protective equipment. "You need to know what each side brings to the incident, what they use for what kind of situation, and what impact it has," says Chudwin. "If your specialized teams work with self-contained breathing apparatus, you need to make sure you have interchangeability with other teams, police or fire. You also need to know the equipment's capabilities and limitations, how it protects you and how it doesn't."

Practicalities
Before beginning to cross-train, says Chudwin, first consider the bottom line. "You can cover everything, but it will mean going a mile wide and an inch deep," he says. "Ideally you'd train together as much as possible, but the reality is, most training is done on overtime. Also, if the municipal budget doesn't support the training, that leaves grant money that may or may not be available. And many operations are so technical that only the specialized units have the need and the resources to train each other, but then they still have their own jobs."

Instead, focus the training on its value to the street officer. Their job at most scenes is perimeter and traffic control, and scene security. Cross-training should augment those functions. As for scenarios, start by brainstorming the issues that need to be addressed. Prioritize starting with the likeliest scenario.

Connelly says having a shared training center helps both departments. "They have a fire tower they use for their drills, but we also use it for rapid deployment, building search, and active shooter training," he says. Previously, the departments trained in whatever facility best met their needs. Kent's department used city community center that had meeting rooms and a gymnasium. The school district also allowed it to use abandoned schools, as well as school buses, for active shooter training.

To build training refreshers into the officers' regular schedules, Connelly created "roll call training" in which he gives three different 4- to 10-minute scenarios on various issues, to include cross-training. He also plans to work with department information technology staff to create "mini-tests" on the in-car computers. "We got the idea from another agency," says Connelly. "The officers can't log on to the network until they answer the two or three questions. That way, we have a record of training given and received."

Connelly and Chudwin say that one area cross-training may or may not be able to help with is the inability to communicate at all levels. Illinois police agencies have an in-car emergency radio frequency that allows all units to communicate, but not outside the vehicle. Kent's fire and police departments just recently reprogrammed their radios to create a common channel. Dispatch can be requested to patch the two channels together, but Connelly says it's better to have one system. He believes the only reason interoperability in many departments isn't more of a priority is because a major enough event hasn't yet occurred.

In the meantime, Chudwin says, cross-training should emphasize prevention. "Terrorism seminars often focus on geography and history, but it's not who the threats are that we need to know - it's how to identify them. That's only going to happen through observation, so we need to train people on what to look for." As with Connelly's clan lab and gang shooting examples, the fire department can easily be trained on what to look for. However, Chudwin notes, the training needs to be relevant and even interesting. "If it's not presented properly, the attendees will write it off," he says. Connelly says also, "The goal is to develop a climate not of training, but of working together - knowing each other as people instead of responding to an incident and seeing someone for the first time."

Christa M. Miller (cmmiller@psouth.net) is a freelance writer based in southern Maine. She specializes in public safety issues.

*December 2002 per BPA statement
*Harvey Research Organization readership survey