Art Zern

Back in January, I wrote a blog post asking the question, “Can we establish a common understanding of risk? Or.. should we write it off?” Because my tongue was planted firmly in my cheek when I posed the question, I don’t want the point to be missed. I believe our duty to ourselves and our beloved fire service cannot be separated from our duty to the citizens we are sworn to and are obligated to protect. What is good for us is good for them. My question is, are we seeing this trend to "let it bu… Continue

Often, we get caught-up in seeking information about tactics and task level training needs and desires. Additionally, a lot our members (especially the younger ones) spend a significant amount of searching the Internet for dramatic fire “videos”. Don’t get me wrong, there is value to both of these pursuits. However, I would also encourage all members from all age and seniority groups to spend more time looking at, reading and learning from several on-going research projects that have real signif… Continue

Can we establish a common understanding of risk? I believe that this is a very difficult question to answer. Risk, is in the eye of the beholder. The ability to adequately assess risk demands a high level of experience and training, a keen eye for detail, a thorough knowledge of building construction and an ability to process and make sense of incomplete information (much of which is of dubious value). The decisions born of this process are always time critical, often life and death and have to… Continue

Brothers and Sisters,

Recently, a video of a VES operation in Indianapolis surfaced on several web-sites including this one. The responses on this site were, for the most part, thoughtful and informative. However, on others, not so much. This is not an indictment of those sites, one in fact is a very good site providing a great deal of useful training information. In any case, the level of criticism leveled at the participants was, in my opinion, over the top prompting a response from the Capta… Continue