All Blog Posts (3,200)

A great video on the BlastMask, which is featured in the Tech Today section of FE this month. If your department hasn't taken a look at the unbelievable training aid- now is the time! www.BlastMask.com ;

https://youtu.be/yKHf7cnFDDg 

There is a common understanding among the firefighter and EMT community that there are lives that can’t be saved or rescued. It’s a fact of life, and death. Usually those lives are lost due to circumstances beyond our perceived control, and most of us have come to grips with this certainty so we can focus on the next savable life. Understanding doesn’t make it…

Let's look back to that very moment you received your gear after being voted into your local volunteer station or your first day at your career job. From those moments on there was always that person that's been on the job for quite a while, with years of experience that just took every new guy under their wing or anyone willing to listen. We can probably all look back and think about who our on the job mentors were or still are. They taught us about what it meant to be apart of this great…

Today I publish an illustration that was harder to draw than I thought it would be - and I knew it would be hard! The subject of alcoholism, alcohol abuse, and drunk driving is at times a taboo subject in the firehouse and our national conferences. We eagerly discuss tactics, obesity, cancer, suicide, depression, seat belts, speed, health and fitness… the…

This year has certainly been interesting related to the legal issues facing the fire service. We continue to see the fire departments in the news for many high profile fires, rescues, service calls and the other good things we do on a daily basis.

We also continue to see the fire departments bogged down in legal controversies that reduce the effectiveness of organizational cohesiveness and at times polarize our personnel and departments especially in the area of personnel management…

Underwriters Laboratories Firefighter Safety Research Institute (ULFSRI) last week released their three reports on the Fire Attack Study - Water Mapping, Air Entrainment, and Full Scale Experiments. They can be accessed from the Fire Engineering home page, or at www.ulfirefightersafety.org. These were the experiments that looked at the effects of interior attack, among other things, in order to provide more realistic comparisons amongst…

Today is  going to be about becoming a better version of yourself because you have to want it. If you're going to do it and it really starts with an end goal.

Where do you want to see yourself? Then you have to create the daily disciplines or habits and keep repeating them and then you're going to get closer and closer. Just like working out, you can't go to the gym one day and be as fit as you want to be. You can't go read one book and just be done with it. You can't go to one fire…

Brothers and Sisters,

What a perfect day to sit down at the keyboard and write about this year. It’s December 7, Pearl Harbor day. Thank you all veterans for what you’ve done for our country.

As most of you know, I battled prostate cancer this year (surgery in March) and am very happy to report the blood tests are coming back clean. Like the folks who lived in Pearl Harbor and persevered through the attack and never saw it coming. I was back in the O.R. three times since March…

Chit-chat; shoot the breeze; gab; flap; chew the fat; gossip; blab. You think you know how to talk. Besides, you do it all day. On the radio, to colleagues, to the media, to your kids, and your spouse/partners. Sure, you talk. But, are you really saying anything?

Martin Heidegger coined the conversing that you and I engage in regularly as “idle talk”. That is, speech which brings about little change or benefit. Talking idly is what we do best. We make small talk about the weather…

The number 2 issue on the poll was:

2.CHANGE a Technique or Task:That’s NOT how I learned it and we DONT do that way here (your New way ... the modern way Your showing us)…!

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Most Dangerous Phrase: We’ve Always Done It That Way.

The real issue here is a person is being required to change instead of wanting to change.

Our job is to be competent in our skills.

When change comes about, guess what?

We don’t see…

The Modified Minuteman Load

The minute man load is a popular hose load used on many apparatus across America, and it happens to be my favorite load of all the options I’ve seen. I feel as if the minute man load, in whichever configuration you have it loaded, is more versatile than other popular loads. This is of…

Being a firefighter isn’t like other jobs. Where mistakes in other professions might mean a person gets their meal cold, their paperclips late or the wrong shoes, when mistakes happen in firefighting the problems can be a lot more serious. There are, after all, lives on the line. For that reason, it’s important that you make sure that you learn quickly and learn…

The number 1 poll response was:

Negativity- Holding a bad attitude and spreading it to younger members of the department.

What to do?

Misery loves company. This is an unfortunate truth. 

First things first though. Why does this person have a bad attitude?

The bad attitude came from a frustration.

A frustation in how somethings was done or is currently being done.

The person feels helpless and feels as though they have no control over the…

Dealing with criticism and rumors, has this ever happened to you? I can tell you right now, it's happened to me. Odds are if you put yourself out there for anything, try to make an impact with anything, you've experienced this. So if this is gonna happen when we put ourselves out there, how can we best deal with it? Well, that's what I'm gonna talk to you guys about today.

At times, we're a firehouse full of typically alpha males, there's some alpha females, and sometimes these…

Sticks and Stones/Axes and Halligans. Firefighters have the means to put a serious hurt on somebody, but we use our tools instead for good. Our words, on the other hand, are wielded, at least by some, with much less regard for the human damage they can inflict. The internet has proven itself fertile ground for zingers and put-downs, allowing a well-timed and -phrased comment to create a virtual worldwide chain-reaction of effects, which can be amusing and/or hurtful, depending upon the…

This piece of equipment is one of the most important pieces of equipment in your tools for standpipe operations. It is second only to your hose and nozzles.  It's selection and use it just as important as hose and nozzle selection. Unfortunately, it is one of the most overlooked and least understood pieces as well.

By placing this inline gauge on the standpipe outlet you are in essence moving the engine's pump panel to the floor below the fire.   As a nozzle man, can you…

On October 27th, my youngest son (center) joined the ranks of the Hartford Fire Department, as did his brother ten years prior, and as I did back in 1988.  I had 8 weeks of training and the rest was ON THE JOB as they used to say!  My youngest just endured 16 weeks of comprehensive training, testing, and certification to become the best trained, prepared, and ready to work firefighter that the modern fire service has to offer.  We have come a long way in this endeavor to protect and serve,…