Drill: C.O.R.E. Skills Training

A firefighter on a ladder.

By Forest Reeder

Welcome to Edition 1 of a joint Fire Engineering and Firefighter Close Calls Weekly Skill Drill. This series of drills has been titled C.O.R.E. Skills Training. C.O.R.E. stands for Company Operational Readiness Exercises and is based on a simple company training principle–keep it short and simple. These highly effective single tasks or objectives are broken into the variety of position responsibilities that the fire service has. Some departments may have dedicated assignments for the positions or, more likely, members will fill many of the duty areas as part of their assignment. If your department does not respond to any of the listed types of duty areas, bypass it and move on to the next or use those duty areas to expand your CORE knowledge of fire and emergency services. Those seeking promotion or skill development into special operations can also use this resource to learn terminology and skills of those duty areas.

Each edition will present a single objective or task for the crew member assigned that duty to preform and review. Your department should provide the resources or references for the task but if no resources are available, you can reference the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) standard included on the C.O.R.E. Key or within many commercially available textbooks or online sources such as Fire Engineering’s Training Minutes series. A blank template, Key sheet, and a suggested task list will be provided within each edition.

The majority of the tasks can be accomplished in a short period of time in either a company drill or on a self-study basis. Your department should develop a system of distribution, posting, and documentation of the C.O.R.E. drills and make staff available to answer questions about the skill or objective assigned in each edition. Fire Engineering and Firefighter Close Calls (www.firefighterclosecalls.com) are proud to make this resource available to you as a time saving and effective skill retention and skill builder.

Blank Template (PDF, 232 KB)

Key Sheet (PDF, 268 KB)

Suggested Tasks, Week 1 (PDF, 269 KB)

Firefighter Training Drills by Forest ReederForest Reeder began his fire service career in 1979. He serves as Division Chief of Training & Safety for the Des Plaines (IL) Fire Department. He is a past recipient of the International Society of Fire Service Instructors (ISFSI) prestigious George D. Post Instructor of the Year award and has been responsible for the design, implementation and coordination of in-service firefighter training activities as well as a full-service fire training academy program. Forest holds numerous Illinois fire service certifications and holds a Masters Degree in Public Safety Administration from Lewis University.

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