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Mostly thought of as a piece of equipment that the truck company utilizes, “The Can” is a formidable piece of equipment in the hands of a well-trained firefighter. Every engine I have ever come across has one tucked away in a cabinet somewhere.  Sadly, it rarely comes...

The ordinary “door chock” is an essential tool that should be carried by all firefighters regardless of whether they respond as an engine or truck company. They are often overlooked as a great tool, probably because they are so simple, but as we will examine here in...

We have heard countless times that the fires we encounter today are unlike the ones we responded to years ago. That being said, we need to evaluate the way we go into these fires as well as the tools we bring along. Let’s take a look at what the engine officer should bring...

There seems to be a lot of confusion and opinions on when and how to use the radio and how long to stay on the radio. No matter when or why you are using the radio it must always be pithy. Pithy meaning: Brief, concise and forcefully expressive;  succinct, compact, to the point....

Firefighting foam has many uses and is a necessary tool to carry on the engine. There are many types of foam and their uses abound. This article is not intended to be a tutorial on foam; we will save that for the future. Instead we will focus on one of the situations that I find...

In part 1 we looked at some of the reasons and decisions you should consider when deciding to promote to the position of engineer/driver/operator. We also began a look into what you will encounter when preparing for the process itself. Today we will continue to look at some...

In previous articles on FFTB, we have discussed what we do as firefighters, truck driver operators and officers and leaders in the fire service. In this series, we will be looking at what preparations are needed to become an engineer (or depending on where you are from a...

The Flat Earth As a boy Christopher Columbus was holding an orange on which a butterfly had landed. He noticed that when he turned the orange around he could see the tips of its wings coming up from the backside of the piece of fruit. As he turned the orange toward him the entire...

How many clowns can you fit into a car? The answer is as many that will fit. This is a growing trend when it comes to residential housing.   Today we are seeing more single and two family houses containing up 5 or 6 families. What is the cause? Tough economic times have forced...

Ever roll up to a vehicle fire and see crews fumbling around with trying to open the hood by cutting the inverted “V” at the hood latch?  Try this tip at the next engine compartment fire you’re working. Before breaking out the saw try the hood release in the interior of the car...