The Fire Ground Size Up

It’s 1500 hours on a bright sunny day. You are dispatched for a residential smoke detector activation. You and you crew respond and like most days, this should just be another routine call, right? While approaching the scene you see a column of smoke, you realize this is a working job. When you arrive on […]

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First on Scene

Have you ever sat at a red light and in your side view mirror you see someone coming up too fast to stop at the light, and then you realize they have no intention to stop. Immediately you look at traffic coming through the green light and at that moment, what we like to call […]

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Mayday, Mayday, Mayday

There are probably no more terrifying words at an emergency scene than these three. Firefighters immediately look around, or feel around, to see if everyone is there that’s supposed to be. Company officers check to see if their entire crew is present and where they are supposed to be. After the initial shock of hearing […]

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Employee and Organizational Morale

As leaders, we should constantly monitor our organizations morale and make adjustments as necessary. What are some of the steps, policies, mannerisms, or lead by example tips we as leaders can do to help build and maintain morale? Professionalism  It is always important to look professional. Personnel should not be showing up at emergency scenes with shirts that […]

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Aggressive or Reckless?

Recently a neighboring department had a fire that involved 2 structures. The department called for mutual aid from 2 neighboring departments and together made a great stop with no one getting hurt. Later, after the situation was mitigated the Chief used social media to express how proud he was of the team for their aggressive […]

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Key points for scene size ups

Emergency scene size up can be defined as “A rapid mental evaluation of various factors related to an emergency incident”, or “An initial on-scene report by the first arriving unit that is clear, concise and relevant”. The fire service loves acronyms and of course we have some for scene size-up. Some of these acronyms are long […]

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