Tag Archives: Fire department

What traits do you believe make a firefighter a good candidate to promote to Company Officer? I asked several fire service colleagues the question: What traits to you look for in firefighters as potential company officers? Two of those colleagues, Fire Chief Bud Backer and Division Chief Susan Tamme, provided some really good insights back to me via e-mail. I could only use a few of their comments in the finished article, but the rest were so good I just couldn’t leave them on the “cutting room floor.”

People--especially those who enter the fire service--generally want to be successful and feel like they are making a contribution to the organization. Lack of clarity from their organizational leaders, and especially their first-line supervisor, in the form of clear expectations can be a significant "roadblock" to their success.

We're not "carrying the day" with effective public fire and life safety programs that provide the factual information about residential fire sprinklers. We're allowing the builders and developers to promulgate the "half-truths" and myths.

Without a residential fire sprinkler system, this fire quickly grew to a size and magnitude that engulfed the majority of the structure before the first firefighters even arrived on scene. Those firefighters were faced with an overwhelming situation from the very beginning.

We’ve got to stop ignoring the “elephant in the room” when it comes to fires in the United States, particularly in residential properties: we live in a culture that accepts that fires happen, fires kill and injure people, and fires destroy property.

Why do we keep building homes and installing appliances and furnishings that don't keep fires from starting and spreading? A new stop fires paradigm is needed to eliminate preventable fires in the USA. We've made safer cars for years, why not safer homes?

Driving a car once was an extremely dangerous activity for the average person (and it still is for people that don’t give it their full attention). In the United States, we’ve made significant reductions in the mortality and morbidity statistics associated with motor vehicle crashes and we’ve done it through education, engineering, and enforcement. We’re far past the time when we need to put more of our energies and efforts into those “3-E’s”—way more!—when it comes to eliminating preventable fires in our communities.

Buying a thermal imaging camera (TIC) with too many or too few bells and whistles is not a good use of department money; here are 10 steps to help you get more TIC for your buck.

Once upon a time…with a beginning like that you just know this is going to be a good story, right? Well the good news is that it’s not a fairy tale. It is, however, the fictitious story of how a fictitious municipal fire department, the Cutting Edge County Fire and Rescue (CECFR) Department, created a non-profit organization (NPO) to provide financial support to its customer service efforts. It serves as a model for actual departments to follow.

Behavioral research shows that by the time they begin their school years, young girls and boys already have some pretty “defined” ideas of what men and women can or cannot do, especially regarding jobs.