Firefighter Safety

In the fourteen years since its initial publication, NFPA 1407 has been a big part of fire departments elevating the "status" of the RIC as a critical fireground task assignment on par with that of search, fire attack, ventilation, and laddering. While this has been a positive step in the right direction regarding firefighter safety, the RIC is a "reactive" approach to firefighter safety. The RIC is in the "background" until something goes wrong (e.g., a firefighter becomes lost, entrapped or otherwise endangered). The presence of the RIC can also provide a false sense of security, especially when the RIC consists of only two firefighters.

Battalion Chief (Ret.) Robert Avsec answers a reader's question about how to reduce exposure to cancer risk during live fire training.

I believe that a fire department that would use such a template for its post-incident review of a “Firefighter Mayday!” declaration would objectively gather the necessary information to have a positive influence for how it responds to future "Firefighter Mayday" situations.

Does your fire department have a written firefighter mayday procedure (SOG)? If not, you should be asking why not? If it does, how skilled and practiced are you and your peers at following the procedure in the event you find yourself in a mayday situation?

During the Question-and-Answer segment following the presentation, one of the first questions posed to me was “Why do firefighter keep working 24-hour shifts?” The second question was “Why would firefighters want to work a 48-hour shift?” The latter question was prompted by the segment of my presentation that described the 48-hours on, 96-hours off, schedule that some fire departments have adopted. And I did not have a satisfactory answer for either question.

How much longer will we in the fire service allow this myth to survive? The fact is, there are few women or men that could rescue a downed firefighter alone.

Protect Your Department’s SCBA Investment with The Solo Rescue Decon Washer Shouldn’t there be a better way to clean and decontaminate your department’s SCBA? Especially when one considers that the cost of one SCBA unit can be three to five times the cost of one set of PPE (jacket and pants)? There is! The Solo Rescue Decon Washer from RESCUE Intellitech!

And yes, the flashover was just as it is described in all the firefighting textbooks. That, I can verify. I don’t remember much after that. I remember my arms in front of me, falling, my head and body striking something, which turned out to be the first floor. I remember hearing the horn sounding for a firefighter evacuation.

Sponsored content from RESCUE Intellitech By: Robert Avsec, Executive Fire Officer When historians look back on the COVID-19 pandemic and how it was mismanaged in the U.S., one of the key failures at the federal level will be the lack of a communication strategy that’s familiar to anyone who’s has education, training, and experience as an emergency manager. The coronavirus ...

I'm grateful to know three very special people, Dawn Balstad-Johnson, Dr. Burt Clark, and Asst. Chief (Ret.) Linda Green, and even more grateful to have read all three of their incredible books. Here, for my money, are three outstanding books that should be in your firefighter library or that of a firefighter you love.