All Blog Posts (3,147)

Aside from residing in the pantheon of the greatest movies made, Full Metal Jacket introduced the world to the Rifleman’s Creed. The mantra recited each night by the soldiers in boot camp as they lie in bed with their last line of defense, their rifle. The intimate reciting of the creed ingrains the mutually important relationship…

For most of us in the fire service this job is a calling. It’s not something we do, it’s something we are, [insert additional corny saying here].  The bottom line is that we have dedicated ourselves to this profession for whatever reason and agreed to the responsibilities of our job; to help those who require our services in their time of need.

But some, including myself, have at one point lost…

Yes; I like titles that are a play on words.

Salient – (say-lee-ent) adj. Projecting or jutting beyond a line or surface; protruding. Strikingly conspicuous; prominent. Noticeable. Springing; jumping.

As we are seeing, many Americans who have held silent over the years are now speaking out about the condition of the human condition (and especially THEIR condition); how exclusive our “representative” form of government has…

Today's First Due Question is about Vertical Ventilation. What is your departments policy and who is assigned this task?

Head on over to First Due Questions on Facebook and weigh in your thoughts:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/First-Due-Questions/181829911841961

Check out my interview at this past FDIC. Link below...

FDIC Interview

Blogger Note: My dad, Staff Sgt. Walter (Gotch) Goodrich is standing in the middle of the back row.

I must admit that I have been a selfish pig when it comes to Memorial Day weekend. I have been so consumed by HOW I was going to spend it that I forgot the REASON. Did you?

When…

Not sure how I missed this last week, but our illustrious Centers for Disease Control (CDC) posted a May 16, 2011 set of instructions to help citizens prepare for a potential Zombie Apocalypse.  Now, I'm not sure about you, but this tongue-in-cheek instructional set seems a bit out of line for our national health information web source.  The CDC has long maintained high quality, authoritative, and well…

Tommorows question once again a little early...This ones more on a personal level. Im curious to how many out of 773 firefighters we have at the moment are multi generation. So the question is who on the like list are a multi generation fireman...explain? ex. Im a 2nd generation with my father being the first generation. (currently still active)

Click on the link to answer: …

This weekend Traditions Training delivered a two-day class in Quakertown/Coopersburg, PA. The class was in a large acquired structure that offered many challenges to the hose crews as they advanced lines all day into the structure, flowing water and simulating making the push.

My mind was going a mile a minute as we simulated fires in the structure.  I thought about all of the tactics I would employ if I was in command for an actual fire. The structure was an old school building, two…

I used to sit on the sidelines and watch discussions that centered on the interview portion of the hiring process for firefighters and wonder what was so problematic.

After-all; at my last three jobs, I was hired based upon the strength of my resume. There was no grueling grilling; just a few questions for clarification.

But now, I can say that I am not fond of job interviews and it is for one, simple reason: I don’t do well at them.

As my…

To follow up to my last post The Ominus Triad - Complacency, Fatigue, Mistakes I felt it necessary to provide an example. The Combat Position - Achieving Firefighter Readiness and The Fire Service Warrior present the true path for…

There is no shortage of discussion on the topic of situational awareness and rightfully so. If we can find ways to train firefighters to evaluate and process more information about what is happening around their task or operation the safer they will be. Unfortunately, there are a couple factors which seriously limit the scope of situational awareness that we can expect from those operating on the fire ground.…

We recently had a trauma surgeon present a EMS continuing education lecture for our department. Part of her lecture was in regards to current trends in trauma science and the use of the Damage Control concepts. Initially I was not very interested in the lecture, that is until she used the term "Ominous Triad of Death". How cool is that, you throw…

Yeah; it is used to suck the smoke and heat from structures, but it’s also used to suck any promise that many future leaders will offer new perstpective to the old hard-line ways of a traditional fire service.

I read on fire discussion boards about concern that the “old guard” isn’t passing it down to the new guard. Along with that come complaints that the new guard isn’t interested in old stuff. They want new stuff; that is, unless it deals with the same old approach to…

Your the first due engine officer (staffed @ 3) of a large home (4000 sqft) on an incline with a very long driveway. All you can see is heavy smoke from the roadway. The engine cannot get down the driveway and its approx 600 ft long. Hydrant is approx 200 ft from the driveway. Describe your operation to get water to the fire. When you approach the home what you see in the picture is what you have....(homeowner in driveway says hes the only one home) Once you…

Well, everything was just dandy until our long time village police chief retired.

Not only did our fire department get along with Jim, but many of us had developed a real friendship with him.

The irony of this dust up between our fire chief and the new police chief is that we have terrific relationships with our county sheriff’s department and our state police.

Here is the situation that was described to me:

Our fire…

Lets go with todays question! Your pulling up on scene of a working fire confirmed by the first due engine company. They arrived on scene just prior to your arrival and are putting hose on the ground and making a connection to the hydrant (staffed at 3) YOU are the officer of the first due TRUCK COMPANY and are staffed with 3 today. As the truck is pulling up you hear over the radio a report of multiple children trapped possibly upstairs per babysitter…