Last year, FireTox completed a research project focused on current approaches utilized in the fire service for proficiency training and continuing education. This research was funded by the NFPA Fire Protection Research Foundation. The comprehensive final report presented various continuing education models used throughout the United States and Canada and also established the number of States and Provinces with continuing education requirements. McAllister and McAllister recently published an article in Fire Engineering magazine which presents the key findings from this extensive research effort. If you are a fire service professional interested in or responsible for implementing continuing education in your station or your department, this article is a must read. The article can be accessed here. Due to the pandemic, the planned presentation of this work at the 2020 NFPA Annual Conference was cancelled. FireTox hopes to present this important work and updates on related NFPA ProQual committee actions to the fire service community at the 2021 NFPA Annual Conference.
Your article on con ed and the issues of recertification is timely and necessary, but begs the question of challenging the status quo on several other similar issues. I would specifically challenge the IAAI recert process, which does not in any way truly measure the skills or competency of certificants. Even their initial testing and certification process fails to do any practical skills evaluation and relies solely on a written exam. Despite this critical flaw, it has been made into the gold standard for investigator credentialing.
Regarding a need for recertification of other fire and rescue/hazmat skill levels, should these be based on substantive changes to applicable standards or the body of knowledge in that discipline, the perishability of the…