FDIC 2016: The leading international fire-fighter training conference is set to be bigger than ever

Fire Chief Bobby Halton (Ret.), Editor in Chief of Fire Engineering Magazine, speaks to International Fire Buyer’s Chris Beck about what this year’s FDIC International will have in store for international attendees
What are the key highlights we can expect from FDIC International this year?
We were so successful last year with our international outreach that this year, if one was to peruse the classroom and workshop offerings, you would just be blown away that we have some of the biggest names from fire services across the globe – Britain, Australia, Chile, Sweden, Switzerland – all speaking at FDIC on topics which are absolutely critical to the country they are from and have tremendous crossover to the American audience. The European model of fire-fighting has always been somewhat an enigma to the American fire service, for a number of reasons: The highly compartmentalised structure, the high pressure systems, the fact that fire-fighting tactics can differ from nation to nation.
We have Ben Walker from the UK coming this year to talk about the European compartment-based fire training method. These sorts of methods have never really been adopted in the US, for the most part because the messengers were not true practitioners. Now that we have those, and with the help from Ben Walker, who has 25 years of experience in the industry, we will be able to lay out how compartment-based training can be adapted for an American market. Ben, Bill Gough and Shan Raffel from Australia will each be giving a four-hour workshop on this subject, so if you’ve signed up for all three, you will get 12 hours of instruction on compartment-based fire training from people who have been doing it for 25 years across the world.
From Switzerland, we have one of the lead instructors on how to fight fires in tunnels, Markus Vogt. He will be sharing techniques and advice based on what he has learnt in a workshop – it’s not a short, quick overview, but a four-hour comprehensive discussion about the research and development of tactics used by the Swiss, who are leading the world in tunnel fire-fighting.
We also have a number of speakers, one of whom is a Chief in the Chilean Fire Service, who will be giving their classes in Spanish, which is really exciting. It shows the level of gravitas that the conference has taken from an international perspective. We are really looking forward to continuing the tremendous growth we have enjoyed internationally in recent years. Remember – we don’t solicit people to present; this shows how deeply FDIC has become engrained in the worldwide fire service. We are getting people from Saudi Arabia, Japan, the UK and all over the world wanting to come to Indianapolis to share their insight and methodology. It’s like what the UN is to international affairs – differences are not debated or argued over; they are considered and shared. We are about building bridges between different opinion and approaches. Every tactical approach has something that we can take away and learn from. FDIC is a celebration of the art and science of fire-fighting, and both are equally valued.
FDIC has certainly become the vanguard of fire-fighter training globally. What do you think has made it so successful?
We are not promoting one method over another, but neither are we dismissing it. At FDIC, the practitioners get to talk about the best methods in their system, and we can then analyse the systems and practices to make a decision about what methods would work best for us. We promote the theory of the evolution of fire-fighting. Change is often brought about by force and law, often by well-meaning but misinformed or uninitiated people who believe that their idea or theory is superior. Take, for example, the tyranny of the Soviet Socialist Republic or Nazi Germany. They believed that their ideology, or at least their interpretation of it, was the only way to go for their social system. After decades of misery, those systems collapsed as a total failure. We have the same opportunities to fall into a similar ideological-driven system in the fire industry as in the political system. We have to be on guard for that, and evolution is a great way to manage any industry; allowing things to happen organically, where experts can bring together the art and science of that industry to capture the moments where all discoveries and breakthroughs, whether small or large, are made organically and allowed to percolate naturally through the rest of the industry from the bottom up. This is the exact opposite of change where things are often forced downwards by sometimes people who aren’t as knowledgeable as they could be – a bureaucrat or administrator. If you let the practitioners – the experts – organically bring things up and let evolution take its course, then things start to change of their own accord and for the better. That’s what FDIC promotes – the evolution of thought and the industry. We don’t promote anyone forcing anyone else to do something against their will, better judgement or beliefs.
As FDIC has evolved, it has, as you mentioned, begun offering classes in foreign languages. Is that something that you can see growing?
Absolutely, yes. We would love to take that as far and as fast as technology will allow us. We are looking into systems whereby, if we can get enough population – say we can get a critical mass of, for example, Japanese attendees – it would make it worth the investment to look into offering headsets and translators in the classes that they have registered for. Obviously, we can’t afford to do that for the many thousands of languages that are out there across the world, but we might be able to pick some that make sense, like French or German or Chinese. It’ll be driven, obviously, by numbers. Last year we had 55 different nationalities at FDIC, which makes it the most diverse and best attended international training conference in the world – Interschutz may be able to get higher numbers every five years, but they don’t offer training, which is what we pride ourselves on. One day, though, I hope to be doing classes in all sorts of languages.
One of the biggest draws for FDIC is the city of Indianapolis. What do you think makes it such a great place to host the event?
The city of Indianapolis is unique, as a large Mid-Western American city, in that it was set up as a place for people to attend events on foot. The need for automobile transportation is minimal. As FDIC grew, we were lucky enough to be able to offer shuttles between the hotels in the area and the exhibition hall. This means that if you do happen to be staying a bit further out, you don’t need to worry about getting to the show, as there will be a shuttle running from 5.30am to 11.30pm. When you are at the conference centre, there are hundreds of places to eat and relax.
Indianapolis is also a city that has a tremendous personality. The Indy 500 is held there every year, it has a professional American football team (whose stadium we utilise during FDIC) and a professional basketball team, all of which mean the city is perfectly positioned to host large events. Because of the size and scope of FDIC, the whole city literally rolls out the red carpet to the extent that a visitor can simply ask anyone on the street for directions or assistance, and the whole community comes out to celebrate the fire-fighters.
For the FDIC week, all of Indianapolis is geared up to help the fire service’s visit to the city, so the hospitality offered in unparalleled. You don’t feel like you’re just at a normal convention in a city that has made its hay on tourism. Indianapolis is a place where you go for a purpose, and they help you accomplish that by offering as much hospitality and assistance as you need. You feel as if you are in your own home town, and we very much look forward to welcoming as many attendees as possible this year.
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