All Blog Posts (3,147)

A learning experience

You’re rolling around in your bunk. Your weary eyes gaze through the gloom to your digital clock - 3:00 AM. You turn again and sigh. One minute, you’re too hot and kick at your sheets. The next, too cold. You can hear your buddy snoozing on the other side of the room - why can’t you be like him? You know a call could come at any time, but you try to force that thought from your mind. You need rest. You screw your eyes shut, and immediately the day’s events…

Today’s example of a revision to a prior firefighting “rule”, inspired by the new perspectives provided by fire dynamics research, regards the direction of our fire attack.  It is a phrase I first saw used by Lieutenant Sean Gray of Cobb County (GA) Fire and Emergency Services in a November, 2011 article in Fire Engineering,…

The Sunday Preach:

Know yourself, Know your enemy...

If you look yourself in the mirror and say: "I'm ok with being mediocre today,…

When it comes to ground ladders, some say throw them until one of two things happen:

• You run out of ladders.

• You run out of windows.

I must say, I do agree with this opinion. The placement of ground ladders allows firefighters to access areas they wouldn’t be able to, create a means of egress if needed, give roof access for ventilation crews, allow firefighters to search rooms, and give…

       As not to sound as averse as the title; no one is truly stuck in the middle as a fire officer. Many of us whom have promoted in a formal process made an independent decision to move up the chain based on a number of indexes including salary, leadership strengths, career challenge, and technical merit. However, this article is meant to represent so many of us nationwide who are labeled as “middle management” in the fire service and sometimes feel our…

There’s this strange lurch that happens when you finish university. Suddenly, from a world of academia and studies, you’re thrown into a wholly different place, where the goal is no longer to fill your brains but to fill other people’s pocket books.

To be honest, I feel the universities are at least partially responsible. Many of them are focused on teaching…

All hockey fans understand the significance of the penalty box. After all, it's a prime opportunity for your beloved team to score a goal with the sinister opposing squad short by one player on the ice, and the penalized team has to form a protective Death Star defense around the goalie in a desperate attempt to stop a frozen rubber rock…

Soon the recruits will be graduating and coming to the field. Once they are assigned a shift and station, they will start training and learning the craft for their year of probation. There is a resounding complaint throughout the fire service that the new generation of firefighters do not possess the work ethic needed to be in the fire service, or the new firefighters are only here for a pay check. How can we change this perceived observation? For starters we must keep in mind that the new…

It has been a while since I’ve posted a new illustration. To be honest, since the loss of my friend to a car accident I have been in a two-month creative canyon (think Mariana Trench) where nothing seemed funny and no amount of motivation could convince my hand to create.…

I am a white male, born in America, enjoying the rights and privileges afforded to me by circumstances. In hindsight, I was born lucky. I have not been discriminated against, as far as I know: I have not experienced segregation, treated as inferior, objectified, regulated, persecuted, nor denied entry or re-entry into my own country. I have white male privilege.

My ancestors immigrated from Ireland, Canada and Germany.…

Have you ever loved something so much it gives you chills thinking about it? The sense of excitement and overwhelming adrenaline that encompasses your body? That is how I feel about the fire service and I think it is safe to say that there are people out there that still have these same feelings. There are still children that get excited when they see fire trucks coming down the road and there are still adults and children visiting firehouses, the future is still there. So, what is…

“Weekend with Bruno”

Rock ‘n’ roll has Elvis…

     "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."  A well known piece of advice to ease someone's assimilation into a group or situation.  But what if the Romans have it all wrong?  Another follower joining the ranks would just reinforce the negative.  Especially if that newcomer is a recently promoted, or transferred company officer. 

     Few in the fire service are promoted to the rank of lieutenant or captain without merit.  Whether its testing, interviews, job performance evaluations, or…

"Don't spray water on smoke" has been uttered as a dismissive command from generations of instructors, officers, and senior firefighters attempting to stop what was viewed as a useless action, and to instead encourage progress to reach and extinguish the seat of a fire.  A result of the fire service's movement from using almost exclusively exterior streams to the currently-standard interior attack (an evolution that has been ongoing for the past 50 years or so, and which, by…

So there I am with a fellow firefighter talking about an upcoming promotional testing process. He tells me how he wishes he could do the things I do physically, but he is just not as gifted.

Truth is, I'm not any more gifted than the next guy around the firehouse. I just want it more and am willing to endure more to achieve it. I have wanted whatever it is more than most other people since my early childhood years. That’s where my path to mental toughness began…years ago. At a young…

Training on the basics is vital to our fire ground operations. The basics must be converted to muscle memory. Often we over the look the importance of the not so basic skills. These are skills we don’t use on a daily basis, most likely on a monthly basis. Think about the operations we don’t perform often like:

Drafting

METRO incidents

Rope rescue (horizontal and vertical)

Air bag and cribbing

Vent Enter Search

Bangor Ladder

Mass…

Professionalism is a very common adjective used in the sphere of the modern fire service.  It is a word that is taken in a myriad of contexts and used to describe (or sometimes denounce) much of what we do as firefighters.  As the emphasis of service shifts in importance to all aspects of our modern-day society, the fire service is no different.  Many fire departments and organizations,…

The greatest asset we deploy on the fireground is our people. Perception of passing time can be distorted by stressors and friction points on the fireground. How many times have you felt this?

Have you ever felt pressured by command to rush through tasks and give reports that are not fully investigated/completed. As though they have a checklist that they just want to have all the boxes ticked and the fire will go out and we can go home! We know that is not the case (at least we hope…

The year 1933 has a significant meaning to me as that was the year my mother was born, this year also was the commencement of the winds of war as Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor in Germany, the world was changing rapidly and our greatest generation was just starting to make their mark on our history. So how you may ask does all this relate to us in the fire service? On March 10^th of that year a 6.4 magnitude earthquake measuring 6.4 hit the Los Angeles area, damage measured…