Over the years, a lot of knowledge has been gained from and by the fire service, thru experience and experimental work. In addition, the development of technology to be used by the fire service has been tremendous over the last years. Also, there is a growing interest to look at the fire service from a more scientific standpoint. Unfortunately, the fire service community and the fire science community have not always been connected in a way that it should be.
The story of IFIW, International Fire Instructors Workshop, started in Sweden 2008. A number of fire instructors met at the fire academy in Revinge, Sweden, including
- Stefan Svensson, Sweden
- Stefan Sardqvist, Sweden
- Lasse Nelson, Sweden
- Fredrik Johansson, Sweden
- Paul Grimwood, UK
- Shan Raffel, Australia
- Stephane Morizot, France
- Peter McBride, Canada
- John McDonough, Australia
- Juan Carlos Campana, Spain
- Jürgen Ernst, Germany
- Kriss Garcia, US
- Ed Hartin, US
- Maciej Maczowski, Poland
- Steve Kerber, US
The intention was to have an inspiring and informal meeting between leading fire instructors and scientists. The idea was, and still is, to share knowledge over borders.
IFIW is not any organization; it’s a concept under which anyone could meet and share knowledge. IFIW do not develop any documents or similar describing the “truth” or “best practice”, simply because there is no such “truth” or “best practice”. The general answer to any question should be “it depends”. The general idea of IFIW is that it should be a source of inspiration, based on science and practice in sweet harmony.
Over the years, based on presentations, discussions and practical experience, the workshop has developed into a dynamic and fruitful event, giving the attendees inspiration to push the fire service into the future, based on sound science and approved experience in concord.
By now, IFIW has covered a number of countries and incorporated a large number of great people, willing to help us bring more science into the fire service. Organizing countries over the years have been:
- 2008, Sweden
- 2009, Australia
- 2010, Canada
- 2011, USA (Indianapolis)
- 2012, Croatia
- 2013, Germany
- 2014, Poland
- 2015, Belgium
- 2016, Canada
- 2017, Hong Kong
- 2018, Sweden
- 2019, The Netherlands
- 2020, cancelled due to COVID
- 2021, IFIW on the web (IFIWeb)
- 2022, IFIW on the web (IFIWeb)
- 2023, Spain
- 2024, Poland
- 2025, USA (Wyoming)
- 2026, plans are being made 🙂
Apart from organizing countries, there have been participants from Belgium, Iran, Israel, Portugal, Turkey, Ukraine, France, UK, Finland, Greece, Iceland and probably a few more (it’s hard to keep track…).
More details, including presentations, can be found at http://www.cfbt-be.com/en/ifiw.
The future is bright!
