HazMat Situational Awareness – Making sense of scent

It is not that we as hazmatters want to smell a chemical agent but that we as professionals better know what it smells like. Besides PPE problems such as suit breakthrough or poorly fitting mask another good reason to have an idea of the scents that are associated with the bad stuff is the valuable information we receive from our witnesses/victims.



Understanding witness statements can be a vital key to helping us safely solve… Continue

ModelCityFirefighter.com’s newest article of Blowin’ Smoke features Kevin Shea, a retired firefighter from FDNY. We are very excited about this Blowin’ Smoke article and grateful for the opportunity to interview Shea on the site. I had the pleasure of meeting him earlier this year in Chicago at Fire Rescue International. He is about as humble as they come and is a wealth of knowledge. We hope you enjoy the interview.

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After several years of dormant or non-existent hiring in public safety is there a recovery underway? Are cities, counties, state and federal agencies moving back to pre-recession staff levels? In past reports we highlighted that we saw as a slow but steady increase in the new recruit academies. Reports that departments were holding off…

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Does anyone have a policy and/or training material on maps and communications for new employees. This is a concern of mine as the chief. I want to make sure that we offer our responders the best and most up to date training available. What I would really like to have is a classroom presentation that has been put together and used with success. We have people within our agency that teach, but every class seems to be different and we need a program that is consistent. I'd love to see what…

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Never before have we had the information we do now

FACE 2011-31 On December 23, 2011, a 42-year-old male career fire fighter died during fire-fighting operations on the 2nd floor of a three-story apartment building. The victim was assigned to Engine 5 (E5) with a lieutenant and driver/pump operator. E5 was the first-due engine company at this fire. The Incident Commander ordered E5 to take a 1¾"…

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