Lawrence Schultz's Blog (9)

I’ll start off as always with my shout-outs for this blog. This one goes to 1^st Lieutenant Sarah Read, of the Chili Fire Department Explorer program. You will see why as you read through the blog.  

In the past couple years, two reoccurring themes have been proposed in the various classes we have taught throughout the states. First is the demise of the fire service because of “The New Kids” and second is their lack of understanding of pride, tradition and honor.…

I am taking a break from my typical anarchist message and, pleading with you to read this very personal story as a personal assessment tool. I am a fire service traditionalist to the core and my style of writing is always intended to offer an opposing (or alternative) view of what I term the “overzealous safety culture”. My issue(s) are not, nor have they ever been about safety itself, but our approach to assessing and managing risk, without using emotional coercion.

I am going to…

Recently, while teaching a hands-on-engine class in Delaware, my younger and wittier teaching companion Roger Steger, found it was time for our traditional protein bar and Monster (drink) run. As he headed out the gate, he stopped and asked me if I needed some Metamucil to go with my Ensure. This was his not-so-subtle way of reminding me that I am old. It was day two of, running long-lines, pushing in with large lines and box-alarm drills, and on top of that, it was 97 degrees. I needed…

At every teaching opportunity, I make it a point to spend plenty of time talking about risk assessment and risk management. For the sake of discussion lets focus strictly on fireground operations.

My concern is and continues to be a growing and unashamed trending towards total risk aversion.  I have theorized that there are many reasons for the rapid…

Today’s blog is inspired by my nephew who I am incredibly proud of after following in my footsteps joining the DCFD. I was fortunate, that as the Chief of Operations, I got to go to a few fires with him and I watch him grow in to a solid firefighter. Unfortunately for him, this often exposed him to the daily serenades of “Uncle Larry’”

Its been interesting managing the difference in fire department philosophy between my views (as the Boss) and his view’s as the one who has to…

If you are in to fire porn, then there is an unlimited supply to be found on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook these days. I would surmise that if you have an ounce of fire service passion left in you, then you too are a fan of fire porn. Over the last several months, I have watched many videos of fires where the fire was located in the attic area and more obvious in the void spaces of the knee-walls.

As I always say, it is ridiculous that we reinvent how we deal with…

Hey Folks, today’s blog is a result of my frustration with the continued inept (and down right dangerous) management of basement fires. Generally speaking, basement fires are often (unnecessarily) chaotic events. In the spirit of transparency, I am inspired to address this issue by my growing frustration and disappointment in my own working environment.  As a disclaimer, I will keep the specific Department anonymous, however in order to be fair, I am not speaking of either the Washington DC…

As a recap from last months blog, I continued to encourage readers to be more critical in thought, when identifying the real issues associated with low performing fire grounds, firefighter injuries and line-of-duty deaths. I alluded to the fact, that it has become much easier for leaders to take the easy way out and blindly use scientific research to make far-reaching assumptions in how to improve their performance, finally finding a hope of getting their people under control. By failing to…

I will start of with a brief recap of my last blog. I began with a contemplative question that challenged the value of our thoughts and trends, as they relate to risk assessment on the fireground. I opined, that we might be defaulting to a “risk avoidance” strategy because we were falling to acknowledge the other causes that make firegrounds go bad.

I then suggested that the fire service as a whole has done a poor job of offering a subjective and systematic way of assessing…