December 2015 Blog Posts (48)

Podcast Episode on Ground Ladders, clickHERE

This episode is a discussion about ground ladders. It's a basic piece of equipment that has such a huge value to us on the fire ground, but in many cases, get's forgotten.  They're forgotten until they are needed, and then it could be a life and death situation for firefighters and victims.

We talk…

A “Flexible” Effort Results in Organizational Health and Fitness Success

 

In the world of firefighter functional fitness, flexibility is a primary yet often overlooked component.  Increased flexibility translates to improved performance on the fire ground and reduces the chance of injury.  There are many ways to improve flexibility; most of them have traditionally consisted of various…

August 27th 2015 was a big day for me as I was promoted to Assistant Fire Chief and in my department, this meant taking on the role as a shift commander in a department of three stations and roughly 20 people under me on shift, now I had been a Captain for almost 20 years prior and also served as the fire chief for a short time so I felt I knew the job of command but as of 1100 hours on August 27th I was the chief now and I took a good honest look at what it is I had to do to be…

“Risk a lot to save a lot”

Upon rounding the corner in my neighborhood, I couldn’t help but hear it. The chant of “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!!!!” echoed through the double pane windows of our first floor, and even though I had only stepped out to walk the dog, you would have thought I was scoring the game winning touchdown (or at a minimum bringing home some pizza).  I could hear my two little girls from a complete house over screaming for me, and an…

*This will be a multipart topic covered over several posts, all focusing on the use and maintenance of the fire service portable radio*

Part 2: Cleaning The Fire Service Portable Radio

Several months ago, one of my tech ops friends approached me about a portable radio assigned to my station that had been sent in for repair due to transmitting and receiving problems. The photographs of this portable were shared with me, and the exterior of the radio had seen…

Attached is an outline we used for a quick winter operations class at work. I ran across this the other day and thought it would be appropriate to post now.  The podcast is here for this topic as well.  Feel free to add and use this as you see fit. If you have some great tips on operating in the winter, please share with…

If you were to walk into any firehouse on any given Sunday, most dayroom TV's will probably have the big game on.  Firefighters have their share of die hard football fans who rep the team hats, sweatshirts and jackets of their favorite team.  It seems the recent turmoil over NFL officiating has soiled the game most of us love. Sports networks and talk radio shows are a buzz over the…