E
ver wonder what it’s like to be a San Bernardino County
Firefighter? What’s it like to cut a roof, put out a fire, or
use the “Jaws of Life”? A new endeavor started by Local
935 and County Fire management called San Bernardino County
Fire Video Productions can show you. The goal: education of
the public about our operations, promotion of our “all-risk”
department and production of training videos to educate our
personnel. Video-based training is essential to San Bernardino
County Fire and its vast geography.
Video Production Team:
Mike McClintoock
Eric Spies
Jeremy Kern
Eric Sherwin
Jeff Allen
About a year ago, a handful of Local 935 members augmenting
the department’s pared-down training division conceived the
video production program. Video-based training will never
replace fire ground training, but it does motivate and empower
crews to train more. More importantly, quality video training can
be done regardless of location. Training videos highlight our
well-trained crews and subject-matter experts demonstrating
various tools and operations. Promotional and public information
videos are created from raw video gathered during an incident.
Once edited the videos are used by Local 935 and fire
management to promote County Fire’s all-risk model and Special
Operations programs (dozer, hand crew & aviation).
The team began with a presentation to County Fire’s labor/
management committee, securing funding for equipment
through Joint Apprentice Committee (JAC) funds, collaborating
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VIDEO PRODUCTIONS
with county counsel to write a new policy and setting about how
to establish and expand the program. Engineer Mike McClintock,
Firefighter/Medics Eric Spies (311B) and Anthony Muscarello (92A)
with approval from County Fire & Local 935 purchased 10 GoPro
cameras, two high definition cameras and an iMac computer for
editing. Local 935 taken the first step to invest in the needed
hardware and infrastructure to get this program going. The GoPro
equipment is distributed around the county on engines, dozers and
helicopter to capture raw video. There are future plans to place a
GoPro on every rig.
The editors receive the video and once the final product is
produced it requires approval in accordance with the established
operations directives. The approval process insures the video is
pertinent to the key message of County Fire and demonstrates
safe operations. Videos are released to the public on Local 935’s
multiple social feeds to include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and
SmugMug online gallery. It is available to the department sites as
well. Social media has proven to have the greatest penetration with
a recent structure fire video receiving 40,000 views in one week.
While other agencies have banned the filming or release of any
video completely. County Fire has chosen to be a leader is this
field. The editors, who volunteer their time, continue to toil towards
their goal of producing a weekly training video and video based
press releases. So, keep the videos and your training ideas coming.
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