NYSAFC Announces Fall Seminar Series

Lieutenant Tim Klett of the Fire Department City of New York (FDNY) will present this year's NYSAFC Fall 2011 Seminar Series "Firefighter Safety & Survival: Recognize & Survive."

The program will be presented in 10 locations throughout New York state beginning in October. The complete schedule and seminar sites will be announced in July. A registration form will be mailed to all fire departments and will be available on the NYSAFC website.

This program will provide an in depth look at the events leading up to any firefighter’s worst nightmare, a line of duty death. In this day of FAST or RIT teams, getting out alive or saving our own training, and new personal safety systems, there is really no true awareness training. Everything being taught is reactionary for when we get ourselves into trouble.

Students will learn the warning signs or red flags that should alert everyone to a developing problem. The program will review several line of duty deaths and call attention to several warning signs that went unnoticed. Students will examine the transmission of maydays and urgents and the information that should accompany each.

Our best survival training is awareness and our ability to react to the signs of a changing fire situation; it is time to "recognize and survive."

Tim Klett is a 29-year veteran of the fire service. He was a volunteer firefighter with the Newington (CT) Fire Department for five years before becoming a paid firefighter with the City of New Britain (CT) Fire Department, where he served for four years until his appointment to FDNY in 1990.

Klett worked in Engine Co. 69 in Harlem, one of the FDNY’s busiest engines, for 12 years. He currently works in the Bronx, assigned to Engine Co. 88 in the 7th Division. Klett served on FDNY’s research and development team, which developed the department’s new PSS safety system.

Klett has served as a lead instructor for the FDIC H.O.T. program. He also developed the engine company operations course for FIRESCUE Interactive’s training facility in Indianapolis and serves as the lead engine instructor for the school. Klett is a certified New York state instructor, an adjunct instructor for the Connecticut State Fire School, and frequently speaks about engine company operations. He is the author of "Stretching and Operating the First Line" published in Fire Notes by the Fire Department Training Network and has written several articles for Fire Engineering, Firehouse.com, and FIRESCUE Interactive.