Wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) and turnout gear properly is a fundamental skill that is often overlooked in many fire departments around the country. This constant routine of complacent actions ultimately leads the firefighter to believe that how he or she wears their gear is perfectly acceptable. Then, as these individuals move through the ranks, […]
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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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Forcible Entry
Without gaining entry into a structure where a suspected or confirmed fire is, the fire cannot be located and extinguished, searches cannot be made, and extension of fire cannot be checked. There may be one or more firefighters assigned to forcing entry (commercial property), or the first firefighter to the door (residence) is expected to […]
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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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Impalement Training
Last year, I had the opportunity to present a training on impalements and removal incidents. I had the opportunity to take the P.L. Vulcan class a few years ago and it got me thinking outside the box about using different tools to take care of certain types of scenarios. One of the most important takeaways was the […]
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Vertical Ventilation – Getting Rid of the Bad Stuff
Ventilation could be defined as the removal of smoke and hot fire gases from a burning structure. There are several situations where ventilation should be used and include fire attack, fire control, search and rescue and overhaul. As officers we have a choice of basic ventilation techniques to remedy each of these situations. This paper […]
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Transitional Fire Attack – Are you and inny or an outy?
I recall a house fire I responded to many years ago. A gas leak in the garage got to the gas water heater pilot light and before long the garage was well involved. The owner opened the garage door to try to get his car out but couldn’t. Going from the back of the house […]
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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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Radio Straps Part 2
It’s been about two years since we published our article about radio straps and turnout gear. It has been shared throughout various magazines and training pages. A few readers asked about our ideas and pointed out that we didn’t address enough when firefighters are wearing the self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA). We took that point and […]
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