By now many of you have heard about the tragic fire that occurred yesterday morning in Baltimore, MD. The original call was for fire on the porch, and it was…

There is an ongoing debate in the Fire Service, a debate which seems to have two camps. One camp is the safety camp; they feel that we are on a dangerous path, that we are suffering too many fatalities each year and that it will take a complete cultural overhaul for us to find safety in our profession. The other camp is the aggressive camp; they feel that the safety camp is going too far, that firefighting is inherently dangerous, and…

Recently there has been a lot of discussion about the first arriving officer completing a 360 check of the building upon arrival. In his article “Situational Awareness and the Three Sixty”, Christopher Naum makes the following statement, “The effective assessment of the incident scene is much…

"The fire service is fascinated with acronyms. Some have been around for a while. PSI, GPM, and RIT are examples. Some others are new VSP and CRM for example. We are also fascinated with new ideas and techniques. We are focused on these new ideas to fix old problems. Maybe the problem is that we keep looking for solutions when we should just fix the problem.…

"What is at issue is the running debate within the Fire Service about vacant buildings and interior operations. There are many that believe that there is no need to search a vacant building, in fact they believe we should not even go inside these structures."…