You lost your “bully pulpit” because you weren’t out in front of the ACLU’s action. But more importantly, where was your support and advocacy for fire service women, especially those women in the Fairfax County Fire Rescue Department?

With increased tourism comes a greater life safety risk when a major emergency, like a wildfire or hurricane, threatens a resort community. While the local population may be informed, and educated based on their experience as full-time residents, tourists are living temporarily in an “unknown” land.

Recently retired Fire Chief Marc Bashoor of Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Department, where he led that department for more than six years and served for more than 29 years in total, has joined the Praetorian Digital Group team as the Executive Editor for FireRescue1.com and FireChief.com.

Firefighters and officers behaving badly. There are probably hundreds of causative factors at work, and while I'm not a trained sociologist by trade, I'm going to discuss a couple that really stand out in my mind: the use of social media and "helicopter parenting".

Warriors Heart (WH) is the for-profit residential treatment facility that provides “cutting edge” treatment for military personnel (active, retired, and disabled), law enforcement officers, firefighters, and EMS personnel (hereafter referred to as clients) to help them overcome their addiction to drugs or alcohol and the effects of post-traumatic stress. As I write this, WH is still the only facility of its type in the U.S.

By: Robert Avsec, Executive Fire Officer So, I can across this informative and thought-provoking post from Eric Saylors the other day over on LinkedIn, Fire departments are response models, not production models. If you’re a fire service leader, especially if you’re the fire chief in your community, this is something you must read. More importantly, it’s something you should sit ...

I was on duty with my team—we were a team of five, four firefighters and an officer—and rest time came about, and I went in my dorm to get some sleep. But that didn’t go as planned. My “team” walked in my dorm room. I thought I missed my pager or something, and before I could say a word, I had a hand over my mouth warning me to shut the fuck up or it would get ugly.

I believe that Federal Law does not provide adequate protection to women in the fire service. In other public safety careers, e.g., it can be much easier for a woman to either continue working their normal job or switch to another unit where they can get light duty.  For us firefighters, it is much harder, especially if you are in a smaller department.  Those light-duty opportunities are just not available.

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 ...

I "got" trained to do what is needed to save lives. I didn't "get" PTSD. I had to do my job in situations where you cry just hearing about the "how horrible it must have been." I'm healing and adapting from PTSD. My human side just got tired. That's all.