All Blog Posts Tagged 'fire' (177)

Read Chief Avillo's follow-up to his article in the December Fire Engineering HERE. In it he describes the benefits of breaking out three different radio frequencies to better handle Mayday operations.

 

Feel free to leave your thoughts about this concept in the comments here.

Four firefighters were injured fighting a six-alarm fire in downtown Toronto. From CTV.ca news:

Four firefighters have been injured while fighting a massive blaze near the Ryerson University Campus in downtown Toronto on Monday morning.

Emergency crews were sent to battle the six-alarm fire just after 4 a.m. at the site near Yonge and Dundas Streets, one of Toronto's busiest…

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A report from the Los Angeles Times reads, in part:

 

The Los Angeles Fire Department will impose a new round of reductions in fire staffing starting Sunday, part of its effort to slash expenses in a bad budget year, department officials said this week.

Fire Chief Millage Peaks said the department will decrease by seven…

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According to the Buffalo News:

 

Three Buffalo firefighters fell through the floor of a burning vacant house in the city's East Delavan-Fillmore section Wednesday night, and

two of them were injured and taken to the hospital, fire officials

reported.

The injuries in the blaze at 145 Mohican Ave. were described by fire officials at the scene as "non-life-threatening." The

nature of the fire is being described as…

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In between discipline, training, planning, and WOW actual calls it occurs to me that we have some down time that we could responsibly fill with knowledge enhancement activities.  Do you like that?  A new acronym KEA.  Yeah, what the heck does that mean?  Let's call it reading.



It doesn't make a difference if it's printed matter, blogs (thank you dear reader),… Continue

Did you feel that this morning?

Don’t by coy.

The tones dropped and you didn’t make the call. Before the first truck could announce “in service”, you were already fabricating your excuse.

But, we know what’s going on, don’t we?

That adrenaline rush that once propelled us to “firefighter of the year” is only a gooey mess of poor descriptions of what is now poor performance.

There was a time not so long ago that you felt like your little village needed…

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Is a broken promise nothing more than a lie?

I believe that it is, even when you factor in “intent”.

When you make a promise, it is not your intent to break it, but it has the same end result as a lie when you fail to deliver on a promise.

To the person to whom the promise was made, it feels like a lie. It’s the same feeling of betrayal, isn’t it?

What about the motivation for the promise?

Was there ever the intent of…

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It has been widely reported through several news outlets that the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) wants to make the more aggressive airline passenger pat-downs so unpleasant, that passengers will want to go through the Backscatter Security Scanners, which are full-body scans that leave nothing to the imagination.

That got me to thinking…

In a metaphorical sense; city governments are TSA screeners and public safety is getting the pat-downs!

So, if any city officials… Continue

Good Day,

I’m Stephen Eric P. Chua from the Philippines, me and my group ( 20 persons ). from all walks of life are all volunteer members of our peace & order council in our local community involve in various activities such as, peace keeping, emergency response team ( medical or calamity), and other volunteer works including fire fighting in our local community. We serve as an auxiliary group when needed by our Barangay (Local Community) Captain or Chairman.

As part of it all, we… Continue

“The Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act” would mandate union monopoly bargaining for state and local public safety employees. (See: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-413 and http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s111-1611)



It would force police,… Continue

That is in the metaphorical sense. A hand was extended and I "grabbed" it. Thank you so much, Bobby Halton.

I have not been active on the fire ground for 8 years, but I remain active in our fire department as president of its board of trustees.

Before some of you get the wrong idea, I want you to know that NOTHING comes before the safety and well-being of our firefighters.

I am true blue collar firefighter who has enjoyed the highs and suffered the lows of this great… Continue

SAFE Firefighter is going to give an overview of how WE did as a fire service from Sunday to Saturday of every week. This will include LODD, Civilian Deaths, Close Calls and any other interesting stuff. Please feel free to leave comments or add comments with links to additional information. Thanks and Be SAFE!



Roll Call for the week of September 26- October 2…



LODD-RFB



2 (Robert Hall and Edward Mosely)

62 for 2010



Civilian Fire… Continue

Since January 1, 2010, we've lost three firefighters. All suddenly and unpectedly collapsed - under the age of 51 and in good physical "shape". While we at the CPTC believe HCN in fire smoke is a significant contributor to heart-related deaths, we of course cannot state with certainty that these firefighters were victims of fire smoke. What we can state as factual is that HCN chips away at the heart and brain with every exposure to smoke. We're starting to see a small movement among departments… Continue

Had a vehicle operation related close call today. Getting ready for the holidays we were hanging holiday lights in our radio room. Of course we couldn't complete the job without having to use something from the rig. We used a small step ladder from the engine to hang the lights. Of course the newer firefighter was asked to get it from the rig. In doing so left the compartment door open which was on my side. I was unaware he was going to leave it open as we never should. In the process of… Continue

So I decided it was time to either get a new helmet or restore mine to a serviceable condition. Upon close inspection, (this means taking stock of my helmet's grievances) I found the liner worn in several areas although the ratchet was functioning, the attachment points were in a bad way, the earlaps were ripped and heavily soiled, the paint was badly cracked and chipped in multiple places and the exposed leather was beginning to dry out. Time to… Continue

Mass Decontamination



Mass Decontamination is an important part of today’s functions of the emergency responder. This is due to the fact that live patients can’t wait for Technical Decon to arrive. There are four types of decon, emergency decon, mass, decon, technical decon, and hospital decon. . When we look at the Differences in Emergency Decon and Mass Decon there are almost the same except mass decontamination is for more people. In decontamination our focus is on wetting the… Continue

By Lance Winslow



Most people who are killed in structure fires die from the smoke not the flames or fire. Generally they are overcome by the smoke and lack of oxygen as the fire takes all the oxygen and replaces the airspace with smoke. There needs to be a way to get these people out of the fire situation and structure immediately to prevent loss of life, however without good visibility one cannot see to get to a fire escape, stairway or exit.



I propose a drop… Continue