July 2024 Blog Posts (8)

In the early 1970’s, Ludwig Benner, a chemical engineer working for the National Transportation Safety Board identified a model of container behavior in hazardous materials incidents that provides impact points for risk reduction actions and provides a model for container and product behavior to help guide emergency response.  The General Hazardous Materials Behavior Model  is a chain of events from the start of an incident…

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The Totality of Transitioning to a Training Officer

One (1) of the supreme facets of being promoted to a role within the Office of Training, is that you now play an instrumental part with influencing the level of success that the Officers and Firefighters will achieve during their tenure within your respective department.…

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Ice Bath for Mental Health: Shifting our Mindset



Ice baths are all the rage right now. Most of us in the fire service are familiar with the “fun” times spent in the ice bath back in the day. If you played any sport, there is a good chance you have had the opportunity to experience the cold. It seems like every other social media post or podcast discusses or advertises an ice bath for at-home use. What once was a luxury reserved for professional athletes is now making it into the fire… Continue

Emergency response is the cornerstone of hazardous materials teams. While response is important, there are other activities that hazardous materials teams can be involved in that further integrate hazardous materials into the organization, provided added benefits, and open routes to potential new funding streams.

Support at Fire Scenes

The hazardous materials team is capable of providing support at fire scenes with actions that will improve the health and safety of responders.…

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Whether your organization is career, volunteer, or combination, it is likely having difficulty finding qualified individuals to fill its ranks.  While recruiting new members has been an issue for some time, the changing demographics of the nation are being skipped as an underlying cause.  Consequently, we are missing some opportunities for identifying and guiding folks…

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Hazardous Materials Hot Line^© July 4, 2024

CSB Issues Statement on Hurricane & Weather Preparedness

The U. S. Chemical Safety Board has issued a statement cautioning facility owners to prepare for an active hurricane season.

 

Discussion:  The CSB has previously released reports on two incidents that resulted from hurricane & tropical weather.  The…

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Ask your self, “why do we, the fire and emergency medical services exist?”  If you are like most of us, your answer will be something like, “to respond to calls to make the community safer and to save lives.”  You aren’t wrong, but the question you should be asking is, “why does the community want us to exist?”.  That answer is a little different and it is one that we need to answer if we want to communicate our needs in meeting their expectations. 

The reality is that communities…

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Red to Rung and the 2:1

This week, I am going to introduce the idea and concept of utilizing a pre-rigged mechanical

advantage along with a thrown extension ladder as an overhead anchor point that was shown to

me by the senior man on shift when I first…

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