CLASSROOM WORKShOP

Synopsis

Dangerous Truths and Half Truths – Changing with the Modern Fire Service

New information at your fingertips at a moment's notice, phone apps, google searches and YouTube, TikTok and other social media. We make the transition into the electronic age of firefighting and not just in the way we absorb information but physically… battery powered tools, trucks, VR training and highly specialized monitoring equipment. Everyone as a firefighter has heard the quote about years of tradition unimpeded by progress. What are the traditions worth holding on to, how hard should we be fighting to keep them and what fights aren’t worth the impacts we cause? What happens when warring opinions in the fire service are worse than the progress they are fighting against and worse than the traditions they are fighting to preserve?  What is the most dangerous truth in the fire service? And what half truths have we been conditioned to believe because of our culture? 

Bio

Chris MacKenzie has been in the fire service since 2002. Serving at many different levels and many different capacities, he is currently the Senior Instructor in charge of the PreEmployment program at the Nova Scotia Firefighters School and a Captain of an engine company in Greenwich Fire Department. Having previously served as a Deputy Chief, Chris’s heart has always belonged in boots on the ground. With a world of experience training different aspects of firefighting from marine to industrial, career and volunteer, he’s established himself as a relatable instructor with teaching style that covers the serious natures of the fire service with the demeanour of a conversation in a fire station kitchen.  Usually serving as a HOT session instructor at FDIC Atlantic, join Chris to discuss the rapidly changing fire service, ways to relate to new generations of firefighters and the problems encountered by the new world we’re trying to serve in.