Redmond EMS Abstracts.indd - IAFF

BRIEFING:
Fire Ground Survival
Disease in the Fire Service. In addition to these duties, Jim also provides expert testimony to
assist in arbitration cases and passing presumptive heart, lung, and infectious disease legislation
to assist our members.
Derek Alkonis
Battalion Chief
Los Angeles County Fire Department
200 North Main Street
Los Angeles, California 90012
213-485-5971
DAlkonis@fire.lacounty.gov
Background:
Derek Alkonis is currently a Battalion Chief with the Los Angeles County Fire Department assigned
to Fire Station 3 in East LA. During his 21-year career he has been instrumental in establishing the
department as a leader in fire service wellness-fitness. Chief Alkonis served as the department’s
first Wellness-Fitness Coordinator from 1996 to 2001 and during this time established and directed
the Wellness-Fitness Program. Chief Alkonis is also a current Peer Fitness Trainer. In this capacity
he has worked to improve the fitness level of the fire department’s most impressionable resource
- the entry level fire fighter.
In addition to his interests in improving the health and fitness of fire fighters, Chief Alkonis has
also worked to develop policy and training programs for fire fighter survival. During the past four
years Chief Alkonis has been responsible for training LACoFD recruits in self-survival skills.
Since December 2007, Chief Alkonis has served as the Lead Investigator for the IAFF Fire Ground
Survival Program. The comprehensive program addresses Preventing the Mayday, Being Ready
for the Mayday, Mayday Procedures and Skills, and Fire Fighter Expectations of Command. The
program is available to all fire fighters in North America.
Chief Alkonis is a member of the IAFF/IAFC Fire Service Joint Labor Management Wellness-Fitness
Initiative (WFI) Technical Committee, Candidate Physical Ability Test (CPAT) Technical Committee,
and Peer Fitness Trainer (PFT) Oversight Committee. As a committee member he has assisted in
writing the manuals and worked closely with CPAT prop manufactures to ensure firefighting props
were an accurate simulation of actual firefighting tasks. Chief Alkonis has been a featured speaker
at past IAFF Redmond Symposiums, Phoenix Fire Department Health and Fitness Symposiums,
FDIC conferences, and Fire Rescue Conferences. He has assisted many fire departments around
the country in implementing the WFI and CPAT.
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