Fire & EMS Leader Pro The job of old firefighters is to teach young firefighters how to become old firefighters!

Diversity is about counting people. Inclusion is about making people count. Diversity is about the ingredients, the mix of people and perspectives. Inclusion is about the container – the place that allows employees to feel they belong, to feel both accepted and different. To achieve success today and tomorrow in meeting the challenges it faces, a fire department needs a group of people who think differently – in a place that's safe to share those differences.

By: Robert Avsec, Executive Fire Officer Thank you to all of you who read last week’s post and Liked it and sent along your comments on its content and intent. But if you look back at the post, you’ll notice that I’ve done some editing. I removed some of the pictures from the article and replaced them. Why? Because I ...

By: Robert Avsec, Executive Fire Officer All fire chiefs and their officers SHOULD BE REQUIRED to read up on this case. Chicago Fire’s Nursing Mother Case Moves Forward Women have a right to become firefighters and paramedics. They have a right to become pregnant and start a family. And they have legal rights to protect them and their jobs and ...

There are many lessons to be learned from Chief Ellis’ case, lessons to be learned that we’ve seen far too many times in the fire service. So, here’s the question: Will we learn them this time?

I submit for your consideration that fire department leaders will not find the “fix” until they recognize that those new members (outsiders) are being exposed to the behaviors and expectations of the firehouse clan from Day #1 with a department. Who’s teaching them in those entry-level training programs? Who’s working with them at the firehouse when they come on board?

By: Robert Avsec, Executive Fire Officer Since 1966, most states have changed the clocks twice a year to save an hour of daylight. Love it or hate it, daylight saving time is coming up again. When you fall back an hour on November 5th, I want you to take an action to move fire safety forward when you move the ...

I’m not saying that firefighting as a whole is becoming obsolete, but I am proposing that we need to get out of the “pot” before we become boiled. Our approach to interior structural firefighting needs some serious restructuring lest we will only see more firefighters encountering flashovers upon arrival, structures weakened to their collapse point before firefighters arrive, and firefighters developing cancers more frequently from airborne and skin exposure hazards.

With Fire Ground Command, Bruno taught an entire generation of fire officers and firefighters how to take people, equipment, apparatus, water, etc., and bring it all together in a coordinated effort to extinguish fires.

This whole PTSD thing is more than what any shrink could possibly tell us. Seriously. They all know the basics of it, the science of it, the consequences and more of it. Hey! They even made a nice medical chart, like a checklist of symptoms to be able to diagnose this injury… but what the hell do they do with us after? Do they really get it?

By: Robert Avsec, Executive Fire Officer The other day, I came across a very informative and thought-provoking article on LinkedIn about Community Risk Reduction (CRR). As stated in the article, CRR is a “hot topic” for fire departments and emergency management professionals. The following is a quick synopsis of the key points covered by the author of the article. Is ...