5 Georgia Smoke Diver Model
“I will never consider defeat, and I will remove from my vocabulary such words as quit, cannot, unable, impossible, failure, and retreat, for these are the words of fools and cowards.”
—The Georgia Smoke Diver Creed
I learned about the Georgia Smoke Diver (GSD) program while I was doing my doctoral research. I published my dissertation in November 2011, and sent a copy to all my participants. David Rhodes had been a participant in my study. When he received my dissertation, he invited me to observe the November 2011 class. What began as a simple observation turned into a full-blown ethnography of this amazing group of firefighters.
The fire service has thousands of training programs. There are even many state run Smoke Diver programs. Most of these programs are three or four days long, and are run by state fire academies. The Georgia Smoke Diver program, which is for structural firefighters, runs for seven days and is one of...