Indianapolis, Indiana
April 23-25, 2009

2009 Fire Department Instructors
Conference (FDIC)

With over over 27,000 attendees, the FDIC is the largest fire department instructor conference and tradeshow in the world. For fire fighting personnel, the FDIC is one of the most important events of the year, with numerous Hands-On-Training (HOT) and educational courses taught by the best in the business. In addition, it's also the opportunity for fire fighting professionals to check out the latest equipment from leading manufacturers.

This year, Petzl America proudly unveiled a brand-new booth, which remained busy the entire show. The new booth enabled us to demostrate our full line of rescue and personal escape systems. Of particular interest at the show were the I'D, the NAVAHO harness and our line of ascenders and descenders.

Of course, most eyes were on Petzl's EXO Personal Escape System. It provides trained firefighters the means to rapidly evacuate a burning multi-story building if the standard escape is blocked. Mike Hayes, an FDNY trainer/authorized Petzl EXO trainer, offered two days of hands-on training. The 160 firefighters who participated in the training left the FDIC with awareness-level knowledge of the EXO personal escape system.

Check out the FDIC's video of Day 2 HOT training and see how many pieces of Petzl equipment you can find!