Firefighter Safety

It’s on you as the individual firefighter or officer to document your exposures—every single one—that you can document from the past and from here on out in your career. It can be years before you develop cancer, more than likely after you’ve completed your career in the fire service.

Chief Avsec writes of the need for a "third corner" in the company officer's hat of responsibilities: risk manager. “If we are to continue making positive strides towards making the job of a firefighter safer, we must develop company officers who can recognize and manage risk in both the emergency and non-emergency arenas.”

The Fire Service Safety Stand Down (June 17-23) is an opportunity for firefighters everywhere to become informed and educated about health and wellness and The Emergency Services Road Map to Health and Wellness published by the Firefighter Safety Through Advanced Research (FSTAR) program.

By: Robert Avsec, Executive Fire Officer Did you know? Half of residential fire deaths result from fires reported between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., yet only one in five residential fires (20%) were reported during these hours [1]. Those hours are also when many firefighters may not be on their “A-Game.” Why not? Because of sleep deprivation. Or because they’ve ...

One of the experts I spoke with says the future of PPE development will be driven by how the fire service perceives its mission. As we decide which tasks we’ll do and not do and how we’ll get those tasks done will be key to the type of PPE manufactures bring to market.

By: Robert Avsec, Executive Fire Officer CO poisoning is a significant health risk for firefighters who are exposed to smoke during fire suppression operations. Fire departments must increase their efforts to identify the early on-set of CO poisoning through aggressive assessment of all firefighters post exposure. And that needs to happen in firefighter rehab. In 2015, the National Fire Protection ...

By: Robert Avsec, Executive Fire Officer Several years ago, at a fire service conference, I attended a session on reducing risk in fire departments. The presenter, whose name escapes me, make a statement that really stuck with me, “You cannot manage or eliminate risk in this business, but you can regulate it.” He went on to explain that regulating meant ...

Training and drilling are opportunities to “sharpen the saw”, that is, work on the full range of firefighting and rescue skills necessary to do the job and make sure that everyone is still doing them safely and correctly. It's important to do that training in all weather conditions, yet it's equally important to do so safely, effectively and efficiently, especially during hot weather training.

Currently our department doesn't have an SOP/SOG on file in regards to whether or not to mask up prior to arriving on scene to a fire. As it currently stands, we've had one person injured (newer to the department,) from being told to do this prior to exiting the fire apparatus. Some feel that it should be done, while others feel that it is a matter of safety to actually mask up just after exiting the fire apparatus once on scene.

I’ve always believed that the most important aspect of better firefighter health and safety is the person who uses the equipment: the firefighter. The personal behaviors of the individual firefighter will always have the greatest influence on firefighter health and safety.