Leadership

A few months back Elgin (Oregon) Fire Protection District Fire Chief Kevin Silvermail contact us about our homemade forcible entry prop. Unfortunately there are no blueprints to share, but we passed along numerous pictures and emails with measurements.

Some of the events up and coming that we are participating in for a variety of reasons. Some in memory, some to build the team, and others for charity. In each, firefighter fitness is involved.

For the last several years, February has been a good month to review and practice all things firefighter survival, rescue, MAYDAY, RIT.

Unfortunately, the young lad won't be going to the regional qualifier because other students presenting on basket weaving and the aerodynamics of horseshoes were selected instead.

So one of the local high school career center students and fire explorer asked if I could help him learn more about forcible entry for a skills challenge competition. He said competition, right? All in!

As I enter my 20th year on this job of all jobs (THE best one in the world that is...), I am once again faced with working around the holidays. I have worked many, many Christmas days, Christmas Eves, New Years, etc.... You get the point. I always reflect on what is must have been like for our past Brothers working around this time of year.

This just happens to be a prime example of what we need to do as trainers in the fire service. We have to step back from time to time and remember to show the basic operations of some of what we now think are the simplest of tasks.

Lt. Bronner sent the following notice about getting your cold weather bags together as the temperature drops. If you have a cold weather bag share what you have in it so others can get an idea of what works and what doesn't. Stay warm.

Let me first start this post out with a question...Have you ever stretched before a fire department training as a group? Prior to this past Saturday, my answer would have been, NO.

The amount of training the people in an organization receive can be directly correlated with the efficiency, effectiveness, and team concept of the organization.  Researchers at University of Pennsylvania found that spending 10 percent of a company’s revenue on capital improvements increased productivity by 3.9 percent. But investing that same amount in developing the employee capital more than doubles that ...