Featured Blog Posts – December 2014 Archive (9)

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 mired in legal controversies that reduce the effectiveness of organizational cohesiveness and at times polarize our personnel and departments.

We can only read the legal effects of the…

There has been recent talk, debates and training on vertical and horizontal ventilation on the fire ground. The focus has been identifying what we do on the fireground that directly impacts fire behavior, therefore impacting our tactical considerations. 

This focus on ventilation is results of testing, both laboratory and acquired structure throughout the U.S. and unless you have been under a rock you are aware testing has occurred and the scientific data gathered is having a positive…

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYBODY!

May your shifts be safe and your rigs true on this Christmas day! Take a moment to hug your family, at home and in the firehouse, and be thankful for all you have in your life.

Personally, I want to thank each of you! Thank you for following my work and supporting its message. Thank you for being a sounding board for my…

It’s not hard to remember December in 1999.

That year, in the month of December alone, this nation’s fire service lost EIGHTEEN firefighters in the line of duty.

Two fires accounted for half of that total.

On December 3,…

Captain Laura Larson volunteered to help instruct the Omaha Fire Academy Class of 2012.  As the Chief of Training, this is where I had the distinct pleasure of working side by side with Laura.  Lasting 17 weeks, this academy took place during one of the hottest summers on record with temperatures regularly in the upper 90s and low 100s, and would be a challenge for all.

Laura Larson was hired by the Omaha Fire Department as a part of the recruit Class of 2000, and was assigned to…

Do a quick internet search on vehicles vs. guardrails and your photo results will be…

C O U R A G E to C L O S E the G A P

As a follow up to the “Revenge of the Nerds” blog from November, I wanted to clarify my position because there have been some out there in the Social Media world that have been critical of the blog and many others that took offense to it. It was not written to offend anyone or to drive a wedge between the two sides. In the past there have been many one-sided comments made on current fire service culture. It’s…

Recently, I have been reading articles on this subject with much uneasiness.

In fact; I hesitate to call suicide a “subject”, because for many; suicide is real and has impacted them. It has reached out and grabbed them in some way. It is someone very close to them, someone they know or someone famous, whose career they have followed.

And, are loved ones LEFT to make “sense…

PUT A TAG ON IT

The Fire Service as a whole and we who are fortunate to be a part of it need triage. In our day to day we seem sometimes unwilling to exercise the same honest, thorough, open and sometimes painful assessment that we use in a mass casualty incident.

Whether in prevention, service delivery, leadership, training, team dynamics, morale, community assessment of…