Firefighter Safety
Fireground safety, incident management, rescue operations and line-of-duty risk.
Developing Your Firefighters
Another thing I've never understood is "down time". What is this "down time"? Do these firefighters and officers know their job functions, their response district, the fire risks in that district, etc., so well that there is no need for training, drilling, touring, pre-planning, etc.? As a Company Officer, how much time are you devoting each tour-of-duty to those four important human capital development tasks?
10 Cool Search and Rescue Tools
Search-and rescue operations in remote wilderness locations or in urban situations following a natural or man-made disaster require specialized tools and equipment for the first responder. Here are 10 search-and-rescue tools and technologies that can improve a department's operations and make them safer, more effective and more efficient.
5 Ways Officers can Keep Firefighters Safe
Nobody in a fire department’s chain of command should have more influence on the safety performance of its firefighters than the individual company officer. Think about…
Making Firefighter Safety Job #1
Reducing firefighter deaths and injuries is, or should be, a top priority for all fire departments in the USA in 2014. The 16 Lifesafety Initiatives from Everyone Goes Home provide the framework for a department to develop strategies for making the job of a firefighter safer, more effective, and more efficient. This article takes a closer look.
Every fireground leader must be a safety officer
Nobody can, or should, have more positive influence over the behaviors of a firefighter on the emergency scene than his or her tactical leader.
Faulty PASS and Firefighter Safety
First off, a faulty PASS device is UNACCEPTABLE on any fire scene. When firefighters and officers hear a PASS sounding it should ONLY mean that a fellow firefighter is in need of assistance.
Dr. Burt Clark: Fire Service History Maker
Many of us first became familiar with Dr. Clark and his “big thinking” approach to fire service issues when he was among the first fire service leaders on this firefighter safety issue: Firefighter “Mayday”. Dr. Clark was the first to bring awareness to the issue by asking the tough questions...
5 Tools to Safeguard Wildland Firefighters
Here are several tools for firefighters working the already perilous 2014 wildfire season.
What You Don’t Know about Smoke Can Hurt You
In contrast, nearly 95 percent of the firefighters who have attended the class have made personal behavioral changes in their tactical approaches to fireground operations. While it’s a great feat to see individual firefighters taking note of the education, it’s disappointing that the majority of departments are not immediately taking action to protect the lives of their firefighters.
The Sexual Assault and Rape of Women Firefighters: Survey Results
I’m sitting at my computer on a beautiful Sunday morning, Mother’s Day as a matter of fact, and I’m working on this blog post. And I’m getting madder by the minute. Mad because I’m collecting the written comments from the survey on Sexual Assault and Rape Against Women Firefighters and I cannot comprehend the idea that the same men who are treating the moms in their lives to flowers and cards and dinner are the same men who have sexually assaulted or raped their female colleagues in the fire station.
5 Tools For ‘Throw, Row, Go’ Swift-Water Rescue Ops
The 2014 winter season has been extremely harsh across the U.S. — with all-time records being set for low temperatures, snowfall and ice on waterways. For example, more than 90 percent of the Great Lakes were frozen, the most since 1963, according to NOAA.
Tampa II: Food-for-Thought 4 “Get Away Day”
I'm confident that the issue of fire prevention has been discussed at length as it should be: if no fire occurs or it's extinguished by an installed fire sprinkler no firefighter need be injured or killed in the line-of-duty. So here's my blog repost for your and those folks at Tampa 2 on "get away day", Children Don’t Cause Fires, Adults Do