Dalton Firefighter Completes FLAMES Training
Friday, December 16th, 2022
The culture of the Dalton Fire Department emphasizes training and striving to get better at the job every day. Evidence of that culture can be seen in the high number of Dalton firefighters who have opted to complete grueling advanced training courses like the FLAMES (Firefighters Laboring And Mastering Essential Skills) program or other advanced courses such as Georgia Smoke Divers. Those courses are optional and are often completed on a firefighter's own time.
Firefighter Devonte Davis may have only been on the job for a little more than a year, but he's already an example of that commitment to excellence and training. In October, he earned the right to wear his FLAMES tab on his uniform after completing the program.
Caption: Dalton firefighter Devonte Davis
"They'll allow you (to go to FLAMES) once you get done with your recruit book," Davis said, referring to the training checklist for each new firefighter once they graduate from the department's recruit school and go on duty. "I was able to get through with my recruit book pretty quickly and I love to train, I love to get out there with these guys, they told me I was pretty much ready to go to FLAMES and so I was able to go and do that."
The FLAMES course is taught over the course of three days in Chatsworth, Georgia. The program's website says the course is "designed to test an individual firefighter's personal limitations when working in high stress situations with limited recuperation periods. It is also designed to test the individuals’ ability to function as part of a team." Candidates are pushed to their limits with long, exhaustive hours of training.
"The hardest part of FLAMES for me was probably, on Friday being up as late as we were and trying to work with different guys from different departments - guys from Florida, guys from Atlanta, guys from other states as well. Trying to find that balance of communication and examining the skills and working together when you’re tired, mentally and physically tired," Davis said. "And the lack of food. Because Friday, you come in and you’ve eaten breakfast and lunch but you may not have eaten enough to get you through midnight or whatever time you go through that night."
Davis said that he felt well prepared for the FLAMES program because of the rigorous training he'd already completed at the Dalton Fire Department.
"Here at Dalton we train on that in our recruit school and we train on that after recruit school... everything pretty much that we do here in recruit school is pretty much almost copied from FLAMES and some of it from Smoke Divers," Davis said. "It's just in a more stressful environment."
Caption: The graduating members of FLAMES Class 31 included Dalton's Devonte Davis
Even though Davis is still a new firefighter, his motivation to complete FLAMES wasn't about earning his stripes, so to speak, he says that it's more about becoming a better firefighter.
"For me, I don’t see any of these courses as getting further or deeper into the family that we’ve got here. I was already welcomed into this family with open arms during recruit school and especially after recruit school," Davis said. "These classes for me are me trying to catch up with a lack of time and experience that the rest of the guys have. I feel like with FLAMES or any of the other courses that are out there that I decide to go to will help me to have a better understanding of what these guys visualize and see even before going out on a call. You know, when we get the call in and they’re already mentally picturing something in their head versus me seeing it when we get there. So I feel like these courses and these classes help me visualize or attempt to visualize on the same scale as these guys."
