February 2017 Blog Posts (22)

As officers, how do you prepare your firefighters to become officers? Firefighter can move from FF III to Lt. by taking a test. As officers are you doing a disservice by not working with your people? Are you ensuring that the day they are promoted they have the tools to function? Many station officers are putting fighters who are on the promotional list in the officer’s position on the apparatus, while riding behind them to give guidance. This is a time old and great practice. When we think…

I thought it time to leave for awhile the references to tools in the Modern Fire Attack (MFA) arsenal and instead look at a few of the new tactical rules that should be guiding our actions.  First, though, a few words regarding the whole idea of attempting to create strict edicts for something as dynamic and variable as structural firefighting.  Since one of the things that characterizes a true MFA proponent is avoidance of the words “always” and “never”, pretty…

We’ve all been there, working in an organization that seems to be leaderless as you rarely see the Chief or members of his or her immediate staff and you respond to a series of Directives or Policies that make you scratch your head.

I have worked for Chief’s that bury themselves in seemingly meaningless activates, sitting in their offices emerging only when there is a major crisis or attending a Board or Council meeting and are seriously out of touch with their…

“You can do everything right on this job and still get killed.”

~Captain Paddy Brown, FDNY

He’s right.

But would you ever stop learning, studying, training…being a student of our craft, because you can still get killed no matter what you do?  I certainly hope not.

So if asked you: Is it ok to avoid maintaining your health and wellness because you may suffer a tragic health event anyway?…

Ron Kanterman, February 2017

That’s exactly what I said to the urologist on the day after Christmas, when he told me that my tests came back positive and I have prostate cancer. Actually, he said I had a “little cancer” to which I asked, “is that like being a little pregnant?” After we both had a chuckle, he started to drone on about the test results, what they mean and possible treatments. For the first 30…

If “more tools in the toolbox” is a good metaphor for new tactics, then our favorite attack hoseline setups might serve as a more specific comparison to our standard fire suppression approaches.  With multiple available combinations of nozzle types and hose diameters, lengths, and folds for structural firefighting, each fire department typically carries one or more arrangements that best suit its needs.  Selecting the ideal configuration requires consideration of staffing and hazard…

            When firefighters begin their careers, formal training starts with either a trip to the Academy or a Firefighter One/Two class.  It is these institutions which provide basic knowledge and where the groundwork is set.   After the foundation is poured, it is up to the individual firefighter to go back to their department and decide what standard of career they will…

The hardest thing to do in the fire service is administrative work. Let’s face it, we would all like to be running calls. The reality is paper work fills up our days. Of all the admin work we do the hardest is discipline. We have had employees that are not performing at a level that is the standard. As an officer you can’t tell your chief that FF Doe can’t do the job. There must be paper work documenting their sub-par performance. Their IPPA (annual evaluation) must reflect poor performance.…

Do you ever wonder how morale issues exist in the fire service?  We all remember walking into the fire station the first time and hearing how it’s the best job in the world.  Then, somewhere down the line, the dark cloud of poor crew morale appeared.   Low morale can sneak up on even the most positive crews.   It presents itself in different forms; checked out shift members, beanery table gossip sessions, or lack of quality training.



Low morale occurs more often in slower…

  In the course of over a decade of continuous war, America’s soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen have served in nearly every climate and conflict type imaginable, from the burning sands to the frozen peaks of mountains. By now, most Americans are aware of the concept of PTSD, or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Once known as “shell shock” or “battle fatigue”, PTSD is now recognized by the American Psychiatric Association in the DSM-5 as a…

Firefighter CPR-A Different Perspective

Giving full credit to Leland FD for first showing us an option for Firefighter CPR.  As with anything we see online, on FB or in a video, we study it, try it out and see how it fits into our department, staffing and circumstances.  That being said, three things stood out to us as we trained on Firefighter CPR.  The compression guy was always in the way, We may not have 3 people available initially and perhaps most important is that we…

Today’s fire service is called upon to more and more. The term “All Hazards service” is thrown around in the fire service. This means we as Firefighters are tasked to handle any and all emergencies from a sore toe to an active shooter situation and everything in between.  I want to dig down to the company level. Our fire apparatus is being set up to do multiple tasks. The names of the fire service apparatus are changing to fit the growing responsibilities:

Engine Tanker

Rescue…

A Learning Experience. Lauran Welling

It seems like nearly every time I open my social media accounts I stumble across an argument or negative comments between those who claim to be aggressive firefighters, and those who claim to subscribe to the science side of the fire service. I don’t know if it is due to ego, bravado, or just plain ignorance, but somehow many of us have missed the point that both of these things have to go hand-in-hand. Aggressiveness without knowledge is just recklessness, and knowledge without proper…

     There is a quote by General George Patton that while set in the context of war parallels our battles on the fireground with a lesson on decisive action.  "A good plan violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week."  While not an endorsement to rush into an incident without proper thought or size up, the quote should provide a reality check that we are in the business of delivering the safest and most effective emergency services with the resources available, not the…

Upstairs with Mr. Bibbs

The cold winds swirled down the cobblestone streets and alleys as if they were always following me, and they caused me to step up my gate and on most dark mornings to hurry past people who seemed better prepared for the elements and in no particular hurry at all.

I could tell that I was poor by the work clothes that I wore and by my shoes that this…

We know that the fires of today are burning hotter and faster than ever before. There are a number of contributing factors to this but what I feel is more important to take note of besides the growth time of fires in structures today is the amount of time these occupants have to get out of these buildings. It was said that in previous times of more legacy constructed homes that occupants had seventeen minutes to exit a structure fire, but today that number is as low as three to four…

You are the officer of the engine and you are dispatched first due for a house fire with reported people trapped. You have several decisions to make, among them is laying out going in? There are some who say that it takes time to layout and that is time the fire continues to burn and trapped occupants are in a hostile environment. There are others who say that they would lay out with a 4 man crew and leave the 4^th man to wrap the hydrant and run back to the scene, or jump on the…

“I Shall Not Tell a Lie” – Honesty in the Fire Service

Every year around the annual Presidents' Day holiday we are inundated with images of former presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. These men serve as beacons of early American history and shining examples of our country’s best leaders. However, I always get mixed up on which one of them…