Think it’s not important to your efforts to recruit, hire and retain the right people? Here’s an Fire Prevention Demoanecdote from one of my fire service colleagues on Facebook, Firefighter Irene Silknetter Fitzkee, from Lancaster, Pennsylvania:
Read More »Tag Archives: fire department management
What’s One More Noise on the Fireground?
First off, a faulty PASS device is UNACCEPTABLE on any fire scene. When firefighters and officers hear a PASS sounding it should ONLY mean that a fellow firefighter is in need of assistance.
Read More »What’s Your Plan for an Inclusive and Diverse Department to Increase Service and Safety?
The solution for an inclusive and diverse fire department is NOT just recruiting more women and people of color. The SOLUTION is recruiting the RIGHT people—qualified, inclusive, diverse and safety-conscious. And yes, that includes the RIGHT white males who understand why an inclusive and diverse department increases service and safety. Recruitment is not just getting more people to apply and show up for the test. Successful recruitment is the first level of the screening process.
Read More »Let’s Get Serious About Preventing Kitchen Fires, Shall We?
Many photos and videos of firefighters and officers conducting public education sessions, PSAs, and fire apparatus: the usual stuff that we’ve done for many years. But what has been the impact of all that time and effort? Are we really achieving the meaningful outcome we all desire?
Read More »I was a “college boy” Fire Officer and Damn Proud of it!
I'm not saying that a more educated officer corps will prevent those kinds of things from happening in a department, but I am saying that I believe that it will reduce the organizational risk to a large degree.
Read More »Life After Firefighting: It’s a Matter of Time
In many cases the most important component of their treatment will involve time. The time to get a diagnosis, get the proper treatment, and recover from that treatment. A caring and empathetic manager and organization can make a world of difference, especially when an illness puts an individual’s life and career in jeopardy.
Read More »How are Your Organizational Competencies?
I certainly support the idea of pursuing accreditation by those organizations that have the resources, e.g., people, time, and money, but what about those who don't? Well, for those departments I'd like to suggest that they use my "homegrown" template for identifying what's important in their service delivery so that they can then collect the data to determine, How are we doing?
Read More »Networking for the Common Good of Fire and EMS
If I were you, I’d spend my limited money on equipment to put CAFS into my firefighting arsenal instead of buying LDH; the 6” water mains in your town really don’t justify the use of LDH. I think that maintaining your 3” supply line cache and combining it with CAFS will give your department plenty of tactical firefighting capability.
Read More »Life after Firefighting
This story is written from my perspective; it is simply my own experience. My breast cancer diagnosis and subsequent legal action combined for my “early exit”, so the “sudden end” was really not so sudden. I fully expected to retire just as many firefighters did before me had: 50-years-old, twenty years of service, healthy, and financially stable.
Read More »Some thoughts on flashfloods and swift water rescue
In the past couple of years, many communities have been faced with torrential rains and flooding. As we've seen in the most recent flooding in Colorado, we are exposed to a huge risk when it comes to emergency response to both the slow rising water type of flooding and flash floods.
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