SDFD Hails Success of L-280 Train-the-Trainer

San Diego Fire-Rescue Department (SDFD) would like to express our appreciation to the NWCG Leadership Subcommittee and their leadership cadre for the interagency assistance that was a critical component in our program development. Federal wildland firefighters from around the US came to San Diego for a week in April of 2009 to turn a group of highly motivated individuals into a high performance cadre of L-280 instructors.

The 5-day week began with 24 SDFD fire suppression personnel as students in L-280 excited to see "what right looks like" from their wildland fire service mentors with the knowledge that these students would be the instructors by the end of the week. The third day was spent honing our new skills. The classroom instructors performed peer-reviewed teaching demonstrations and the Field Leadership Assessment Course (FLAC) instructors developed new exercises and did practice runs through each other's stations. The opportunity to receive constructive feedback from such an experienced group of professionals was invaluable to our cadre of instructors. The final two days had the SDFD instructors in the hot seat as we presented the course for the first time with mentors over our shoulders and steering us in the right direction. The week was an amazing success as witnessed by the outstanding feedback from our participants in each of the four classes that we have delivered to date.

Our department has been teaching L-180 (Human Factors) in the Basic Fire Academy since 2003. The value of this program was quickly recognized and identified the need to spread this information to all SDFD personnel. Thanks to grant funding, L-380 (Fireline Leadership) was first delivered in December 2006. Individuals motivated by their participant experience formed the Leadership Development Planning Group (LDPG) as a steering committee for future leadership training. Almost every uniformed member of SDFD has received the L-180 training including Senior Staff. We have also trained the civilian personnel in our Communications Center and a number of EMS personnel.

Contributed by Tricia Zipp Pollett, Captain, Emergency Resource Officer
Fire Communications Center, San Diego Fire-Rescue Department

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