Innovation

We are killing our profession with poor fire service marketing. Over and over we see articles, white papers, and opinions on the negatives of the fire service. No wonder there is a recruitment and retention challenge. The fire service will provide you a great career with solid pay, benefits, a second family, and retirement. Check with those that came before ...

Here are a couple pictures of a wall breach prop Andrew Brassard passed along. Looks to be a pretty good reusable prop that we can make with some scrap around the firehouse neighborhood.

The next few paragraphs and pictures are from Andrew Brassard. The prop he built to talk about fire behavior worked great. Check it out and talk about the stages of fire with your crew. What are you looking for when, where, and why as you crawl into each building.

I've been preaching the combination of experience and education for some time. These aspects of the job should not work in opposition to one another, yet bring forth a more powerful fire service.

Grant Light and the firefighters at Cincinnati Rescue 9 built a VES prop in the firehouse.

Below are a couple pictures of a interesting elevator rescue set-up from the Edmonton Technical Rescue Team (Engine 3 and Rescue 3). They used Paratech collapse shores.

Heck, most of yes have the materials laying around the firehouse. Have a rookie on your crew?

They used handlines under the water and on top of the water to simulate current. This is an awesome and innovative way to get crews some realistc training.

There is no way one training site, blog, or company can cover it all. Get on Facebook, Twitter, a blog, a website, or all of the above for a training idea to prevent A.I.R. (ass in recliner) syndrome.

As more and more alternative fueled vehicles hit the road, we still haven’t really seen an industry standard that identifies these vehicles easily for first responders.  Little hybrid, propane, or CNG stickers on the trunk or fender can be hard to see at night and/or destroyed during a crash.  The tale is similar when talking about school buses.  Take for ...