7 Mistakes To Avoid As a New Firefighter

When starting out as a firefighter, you will be tasked with numerous roles and responsibilities. Learning the job is going to require patience and hard work and will be a task that will never be finished. As you start out on your journey, like we all have at one point, we wanted to provide a cheat sheet of sorts to help set you up for success. Below are 7 mistakes we often see a new rookie make in the first year. 

Don’t burn down the firehall..

Avoid these mistakes as a new firefighter…

1. Not asking enough questions

Not sure how something works? Haven’t fully grasped a concept yet? Need another demonstration? Need to do a little more hands-on practice? If you don’t ask the questions you won’t be given the help or the answers. It can be difficult to ask questions because we fear that our peers will think less of us or that we are not capable. We are afraid that asking a question could be seen as a waste of time to the instructor or class. The fear is that we will be put into a position of being vulnerable and open to being attacked. The truth is, if you are thinking about asking something, someone else is too. The person next to you who seems confident about a topic might be reminded of something they forget, learn something new, or simply be in the same position and unsure what to ask or how. If you are surrounded by leaders looking to do the right things in fostering growth with their people and are striving for a culture that is always developing and learning then questions are the answer. Without asking those lingering questions, you are only hurting your own progress in becoming the firefighter you always said you would be.

2. Pretending this is just a job

Some may look at firefighting as a job with great benefits, time off, fun to be had, a cool bragging right and so on. The reality is this is not your ordinary job. You can’t treat something that can kill you the same way as other jobs out there. This is a career and a lifelong journey where development and growth is key. You cannot be finished with learning, training, and practicing after a couple of years thinking you have all the answers. Firefighting will humble you drastically the day you think you have it all figured out. The one thing to be confident in understanding is that you don’t know everything and never will. Stay humble, avoid being arrogant, work hard, be a team player, and never stop growing.

3. Thinking the basics are not a perishable skill

When being introduced to something new, there will be stages of learning in place. Oftentimes we want to get past the initial teachings so we can do a more advanced technique. The want to run without being able to walk can get the best of us. Not focusing on the basics or taking time to practice something because you feel it is so simple will eventually humble you. When the bell rings, things are loud, you can’t see your hand in front of your face, and the pressure is mounting, you will revert back to the easiest most memorable way of getting the job done. When the fancy hose lay in an apartment hallway you practiced so often wont work because the hose has become tangled into a spaghetti mess, you will stretch the line in the simplest means. Don’t lose sight of where you came from and how one skill leads into another. Practice the advanced techniques but make sure to mix in the basics that lead to being able to do those advanced techniques. If nothing else, you will have more options and be a better firefighter for doing so.

4. Not working out/living a healthy lifestyle

As you start your career, you might think it’s important to be available to your crew every waking minute of the day. There are many jobs to be done at the hall and every one of them is an opportunity to prove yourself. The same thing goes for living a healthy lifestyle. It is important to do something beneficial for your health during periods of downtime at work. It could be a workout, stretching, yoga, cardio etc. This will convey to your crew that you take this job seriously and you are preparing for the many facets of the job. Studying and training along with all the requirements at the hall are important, however if you are not adding the overall health and well being portion into the mix, you are not only selling yourself and your crew short, you are not doing everything you can to help and prepare for the people who will need you most when the tones go off.

5. Not Being Coachable

Like anything in life, those who cannot take direction, constructive criticism, or feedback of any nature will find themselves running into a brick wall. Whether or not you are an expert or just starting out, being able to listen and respect what someone is trying to instil in you, is a skill that needs to be learned as quickly as possible. The people in this industry that are going to try to teach you have been on thousands of calls. These experiences will teach you far more about the job than a textbook and a couple weeks of training can. Each call they have been on, and each call you will go on is an opportunity for self improvement. Be open on how you can improve and help the team. As you will probably hear, you have two ears and one mouth for a reason, therefore, listen more than you speak.

6. Not seeing the bigger picture

You will be asked to be the first one to be at work, the one to make the coffee, the one to do the grunt work and so on. If you are not sure who is supposed to do something, it’s probably you as a new firefighter. You might think this is unfair but what is really happening is you are being tested. You might assume that the coffee being made isn’t important or that someone else can do it, what is really being tested is, can we rely on you to do the simplest of tasks? If you can’t be trusted with the coffee, how can you be trusted in being alone at the hydrant and securing water? If you can’t be the first one in at work, how can you be trusted to be behind us when we are leading you into a fire? What may seem like an unfair situation and a not so team oriented environment at first, will change as the crew sees that you start to understand. The bigger picture here is that the crew wants to know they can count on you. If they can count on you and trust you, you will find that more is being done to help you with all the tasks that used to only be your job. You won’t always see the bigger picture but this is the first one that you know the reasons and the answers for to help you on your way

7. Letting ego win

This one encapsulates each mistake listed above and is the reason for several other mistakes in the firefighting world and in our daily lives. It may seem like someone is always telling you what to do or how to do it, even if what is being taught is something you feel you already know. Take a step back, be coachable, listen, see what you may have missed the first time through, see if you can learn something new. Drop the ego and the attitude and be an active learner. Remind yourself everyday that you are not more important than the person next to you. Remind yourself that you don’t know everything and never will. Be able to adapt to situations and understand that someone coaching you is not the same as them attacking you. Understand that you will not get along with everyone or mix well with certain personalities. You can often mitigate these issues by asking yourself what the underlying issue is that is bothering you. The most recurring reason will be related to you feeling threatened. Once you have identified that no one is attacking you, but rather trying to teach you, you will be able to see that the help is coming from a positive place. This may not always be obvious to see but the underlying reason is that others want to see you succeed and care about you.