RF-DASH
RF-DASH Course Purpose
Welcome to the Rural Firefighters Delivering Agriculture Safety and Health (RF-DASH) online course. This course is designed to give rural communities peace of mind by building trust, sharing access to essential tools, and providing practical knowledge. It brings together farmers, agricultural workers, emergency responders, and partner organizations to prevent injuries and save lives. This program also provides the best tools and technology to improve farm safety.
This course includes six modules about agricultural safety. Select the buttons below to learn more about the modules.
Module 0: The Origin and Development of the RF-DASH program
Module 0 provides an overview of the origins and evolution of the Rural Firefighters Delivering Agriculture Safety and Health (RF-DASH) program.
Module 1: Introduction to Agricultural Emergencies
Module 1 raises awareness among emergency service personnel (fire, rescue, EMS, police) about the many hazards on farms.
Module 2: Pre-planning and Mapping Farms
Module 2 discusses the importance of pre-planning and how to use pre-planning tools.
Module 3: Farm Hazard Analysis
Module 3 explains how to inspect and analyze farm hazards.
Module 4: Farm First Aid
Module 4 describes how emergency responders can teach first aid to farm/ranch families, farm employees, and other farm stakeholders.
Module 5: Approaching the Farm Community
Module 5 provides different avenues for emergency responders on how to approach farmers about farm safety.
Course Design

Learn from the experts in each RF-DASH module! Video lessons feature the actual program instructors explaining key concepts. Fireman Ted, our animated guide shown here, will further clarify each module’s overall goals. Review the written content, enhanced with images and graphics, in the yellow slides. Engaging activities throughout the course will reinforce your learning and prepare you for the final quiz.
Fake Welcome Video

Directions: Before we explore the modules, let’s hear from the RF-DASH program director, Cap Bendixsen.
How does the RF-DASH course benefit your community?
This course equips agricultural health and safety practitioners with the tools to address the challenges in implementing safer farming practices. Agricultural operations are separate, independent enterprises and most are exempt from governmental regulations. In fact, many U. S. farms and ranches (estimates as high as 90%) remain exempt from Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards as they have 10 or fewer unrelated workers (Kelsey, 1994; U.S. Department of Labor, 1998). Some states have stricter OSHA programs that help reduce injuries and deaths, but farm safety experts mostly rely on non-regulatory methods to improve safety on farms.
Additionally, there are not enough trained safety consultants to provide farmers with safety recommendations. Farm operations are diverse. They have varying landscapes, commodity types, machinery, and structures. There are also numerous people present on any one day or during any one season. Individual agricultural sites are often separated by long distances, presenting a tangible gap that can make face-to-face interactions with many participants costly in terms of both time and money.
By training practitioners in safety and health farm practices, this course empowers you to over come these challenges. The result is improved health and safety outcomes for agricultural workers and their communities.
Train Others and Spread RF-DASH Knowledge
The RF-DASH online course is designed to help you train others in the RF-DASH program. This course will walk you through the five modules, show you how to conduct a training and farm visit, give tips on talking to the media about agricultural incidents, and much more.
The curriculum is developed, maintained, and supported by industry-leading experts from a variety of backgrounds, including fire/EMS, occupational medicine, research, and agricultural health and safety. Most fire departments in North America are volunteer-based and have service areas that include a large number of diverse agricultural operations. We want you to be an advocate for RF-DASH, to expand its reach to others in your community, and be a rural firefighter that delivers agricultural safety and health.
Now, let’s start with Module 0: The Origin and Development of the RF-DASH program, to learn why this program was created.