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The role and responsibly associated with the job of ladder truck driver/operator or engineer or chauffeur or whatever you call it, is one of the most important in the fire service. Without being redundant, if the driver doesn’t get us there, we don’t help anyone. That is also...

What Can We Do? As the fire service moves closer to understanding that our own need to call for assistance earlier, more MAYDAYs seem to be occurring on the fire ground. Is this a bad thing? I don’t really think so. Quite the opposite actually. It shows that we are learning that...

Opening the Roof We have discussed in depth the physics associated with ventilation; Flow path, heat transfer, air exchange, uniflow and bidirectional flows. All the stuff we need to know but has very little to do with actually “opening” a structure up! So, in this segment we are...

Over the last 20 years we have seen the use of Positive Pressure Ventilation (PPV) in offensive structural firefighting evolve. This concept got it’s start in the United States back in the early 1980’s on the west coast. It was originally utilized to assist the attack crew with a...

How does it affect what we do on the Fire Ground? In the previous article regarding understanding of Flow Path and how it works (Tactical Ventilation – Understanding the Flow Path Part 1) I talked about the need to understand what actually happens with the flow of air (good...

Task/Position Assignments In the first part of this article we discussed the qualities that are necessary for a truck crew to become a well oiled machine. Those qualities and practices build the foundation for your team to arrive well educated, assess the needs of the incident,...

In my previous article, Rescuing the Trapped Firefighter Part 2 ,we discussed four essential components to the firefighter rescue. This article will wrap up my series and it will discuss the skill sets needed to bring this all together. Skill Sets The first set of...

I often hear people ask, how does your truck company work so well? Great question, the primary ingredient is trust. In order for a crew or team to work effectively you must trust each other to carry out your assigned task; as well as being able to communicate that you aren’t able...

FF Rescue – Just What Does it Mean – Part 1 of 3 The Essential Components The primary function of today’s firefighter should be to survive. You wonder why I say that? Without survival you are not only a loss to the fire service but your family. So, how do we balance...

Understanding the beginning…. During the last several years, a number of studies and theories have been explored in an attempt to understand, why and how fires today are “different” than fires from 25 years ago. The overwhelming evidence points to the chemicals and...