City Firemen Don't Sit Around--Schedule Includes Training, Work

Ann Arbor firemen feel that tired, old joke about on-duty firemen having nothing to' do but play checkers is just that - a tired, old joke. And to prove their point they can list a daily work-and-study schedule that leaves little time for checkers - or any other game. City firemen receive some type of training or classroom work every working day except Saturdays and Sundays. If a scheduled class or training session is interrupted or must be canceled because of a fire run or other emergency, it is rescheduled for the next working day. The training schedule is drawn up every two weeks and the instructioü is repeated for two days in a row to benefit both 24-hour duty shifts. Men who been off usually are given thé mstrüction on the third day. 'ie summer, outdoor practical training is given as much a's possible. with the winter months devoted to "book" work. An important segment of the training involves the learning of the location of every street in the city and every fire hydrant on every street. "We try to give every man an opportunity to drive the apparatus," Acting Chief Haro'ld Gauss noted. "And it's vital that each man know the streets, the shortest and most direct route to these streets and the location of the hydrant on them." The formal classroom woïk includes instruction on approved firefighting practices, rescue operations, first aid and service in Civil Defense. Outside "tower work" is done at the U-M's North Campus Civil Defense Training Center, while teaching of routine handling of hoses and other equipment is conducted at the various stations. Assistant Chief Arthur Stauch said the department logs thousands of hours of training per year for new men in addition to "programming a continuing series of refresher courses for experienced firefighters. An innovation begun severa] years ago is a discussion period or "critique" held by command personnel with their men following all majoT fires. "The purpose of these discussions is to find out among ourselves how we might have operated more efficiently, w h a t might have been wasted motion, how oür equipment held up or failed and how we can improve our methods should a fire of a similar nature occur," Stauch noted. The discussion periods have produced valuable suggestions tfn the overall improvement of service, Gauss added. A vital part of the training of an Ann Arbor fireman is the "pre-planning" which is a periodic rundown made of every major commercial building or apartment house in the city. In the "pre-planning" discussions firemen make particular note of locations of hydrants near the building, exits and entrances to it, hazards which might be nearby, such as gasoline storage tanks or explosives, and the equipment which would have to be used to bring a blaze in the building under control. "G o o d firefighting doesn't just happen," Gauss said. "You have got to be trained for itJ and have a plan and follow il After you've done that, you justj hope the fire you're ready for never happens." T w o men are on d u t y af the central fire station's telephone switchboard 24 hours a day. They are probably the most vital persons connected wiih the community's protection against fire because it is through them the alarm which sends the trucks into action is sounded. "A person calling in a fire naturally is excited and distraught," Stauch said. "It's the duty of the man on watch taking that cali to counteract that excitement with calmness, and to get the fire location quickly and correctly." The National Board of Fire Underwriters recommends two men be assigned to "w a t c h 8ufy" heransp nf t.hpi nnssihilitv