The holiday season has begun for some of us it is colder than the look you see in a black Friday shopper's eye when they are told the products they wanted are sold out. It is also the weekend leading up to the fire dept's Christmas dinner. A time food, family, and awards. This has been a long standing tradition with good awards and not so good awards. Last year I hit a deer with our light rescue needless to say I got a couple. This year I am handing some out for the first time. I will admit…

Excerpt post with permission of pipenozzle.com

Yes, Collinwood (1908) and Our Lady of Angels (1958) happened a long time ago, but in May 2012, three teenage boys mimicked a youtube.com video and set fire to hand sanitizer on a desktop in a Woodburn High Schoolcomputer room and tried to put it out with paper…

There is a debate that rages, on a daily basis; aggressive versus safe – interior versus exterior – searching versus waiting.  Depending on where you work and what your experience is, you no doubt have an opinion about these topics.  Some hold a very strong opinion, that the safety sallies (you know, those that advocate safety above everything) are ruining the fire service and that there is no room for their thinking.  There are others that…