Category

In the last article we discussed Incident Command priorities and skills to effectively manage a MAYDAY event. Now I would like to focus on the tasks that the officer leading the Rapid Intervention Crew (RIC) should perform. As always please refer to your departments SOG’s...

Remain Calm & Composed First and foremost it’s imperative to remain calm. This is easier said than done especially since the firefighter is one of your own. Remember, if you start screaming and losing your bearing on the radio it will invite everyone else to do the same. Keep...

I cannot help but think I am in the twilight zone! For whatever reasons, I continue to see with my own eyes apparatus positioned on incidents along highways in positions that exposes the crew to fatal collisions with drivers that cannot, won’t or just plain don’t care about...

On September 28, 1992, a 3 alarm fire broke out in Denver, CO on the 1600 Block of South Broadway. During the fire operations, 39-year-old Mark Langvardt (16 Year Veteran), of Truck Co 16, became separated from his crew. Due to collapse, intense heat and heavy smoke trapped Mark...

The primary mission of the fire service is to protect life. One of the ways we do this is through the primary search at a building fire. By definition, the primary search is the aggressive systematic search of a structure performed either before or during fire suppression...

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...

As we learn about and accept the fact that light weight construction is here and here to stay, we need to understand as a fire service how to tactically extinguish the fire and protect ourselves and our fellow firefighters. Think to yourself about the risk verses reward of what...

We are only as strong as our weakest link. It is important to know what the weakest link in the chain is. We are only as strong as our weakest link. When is comes to today’s firefighting personal protective gear including SCBA, according to research done by NIST ( National...

There was a video that went viral recently about a volunteer fire crew extinguishing an auto fire. There were several errors in judgement and poor choice of tactics with how the incident was handled. The officer did not set a proper example of holding the crews to the proper PPE...

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...