I get a lot of emails asking for good workout options for the firehouse when on-shift.  

Working out on-shift is a major concern, you want to make sure you keep your body in good "fit for duty" condition but also want to make sure you have enough "left in the tank" to respond and perform in an actual response.  Over the last couple of years I have…

Today I want to give you a taste of the type of workouts that you will find in the Ultimate Fire Athlete Workout and it comes with great timing and a lot of significance... The National Fallen Firefighters Foundation provides resources and funding (via grants and donations) towards remembering our fallen and protecting our current firefighters.  This "tribute"…

As firefighters, we have a lot riding on our equipment. We demand more out of our gear than practically any other profession, because if it fails, it can cost a whole lot more than just money. How, then, can we ensure that our equipment doesn’t break down when we need it the most?

The answer is simple: check your equipment regularly. This seems like a no-brainer, but when you consider the realities of the…

I've had a lot of requests for workout options that can be performed at the station with minimal equipment.  Here is an option I created for a firefighter/medic that has no equipment and only some stairs and a parking lot. This can be used as a cardio interval training workout day (for those following the 28-day Quickstart Program) and/or as a good workout to get the blood flowing.   Give it a…

I get a lot of requests to come up with workouts that can be performed on duty with equipment found at the firehouse. The other day, my crew and I performed this intensive 30 minute interval workout.  This workout will get your heart racing, challenge your core and work your muscles.

The workout consists of three, 10 minute intervals each with a different focus.  The first 10 minutes focuses on anaerobic recovery, the second ten minutes on full body strength and the last ten…

The Model City Firefighter is headed to the Motor City to provide mutual aid!

A couple months back, the Detroit Mutual Aid Project was launched to raise much needed funds to purchase equipment for our brothers and sisters in Detroit, MI. As a Board Member of the National Firefighters Endowment, I have been involved with the project since…

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…

It was a dark and stormy night, really it was. The heavens had opened up in Colorado once again; the streets were running with hot stinky water, funky water that smelled of petroleum and death. I was on duty at firehouse number four when the alarm hit. Rollover T/A at Lake Avenue and highway 115 with people trapped.…

by: Lou Angeli

TORONTO, ONT (August 29, 2013) -- Earlier this week, Toronto Fire Chief Jim Sales announced that 2 city firefighters had been suspended indefinitely for sexist remarks made about colleagues on Twitter. Believe me, these firefighters made some very nasty comments. 

Toronto's top firefighter said,  'In the public domain it's…

Blowin' Smoke is a series of articles published on ModelCityFirefighter.com that consist of a Q&A session with veterans in the fire service. These individuals are asked a series of questions about their career and experiences they have witnessed. This edition is with an 18 year veteran of DFD that is currently assigned to Detroit's…

Professionalism means acting appropriately and in a manner that is acceptable and careful. Applied to the fire service, a professional is not whether or not you are paid or volunteer. That is a topic that often brings out the most heated of discussions, but there is a division nationwide between volunteers and career firefighters.

I recently had a conversation with a…

Excerpt from current post at pipenozzle.com printed here with permission:

Deborah Straszheim’s update on Alan Ackley’s inane, insidious antics in today’s New London paper is old news. Ackley continues to act the mad fool navigating—if you can call it that—the Poquonnock Bridge Fire District right toward the shoals of financial and public safety disaster.

Straszheim reported that Ackley…

Excerpt from post at pipenozzle.com on Ackley Argle Bargle and the Ecology of Fire.  Reprinted here with permission.  

"But the hazard load won’t go away no matter who runs the department or runs it into the ground. Firefighters see the world as a collection of hazards so the rest of us don’t have to look at them, and the total of hazards in a protection jurisdiction is the hazard load. It’s all part of the ecology of fire, of all things that burn. Firefighters know…

Sample from current post at pipenozzle.com reprinted with permission: 

"I’d say it’s fair to conclude, based on my two decades of teaching experience and thirty years as a writer, that most Americans can not tell if they have been victims of propaganda or not until some obnoxious retired educator/writer like me starts asking for fact. I did so with Kaitlyn and easily established that she had no basis in fact for supporting Ackley and for voting to slash the PBFD budget.…

I have a question. Why is it that most firefighter shifts start around 7:00 am? Why are firefighters forced to deal with rush hour traffic and add to the rush hour mess? After all we work a 24 hour shift, why couldn’t we begin our day at say 10:00am or 11:00am?…

More and more of my firemen friends are retiring, this is the result of hiring large recruit academies in the early 80’s. I have gone to a few retirement parties to wish my friends well in retirement land and to see other retirees.…

I have been asked if Firefighters are good in bed and since I’ve only slept with one, my ex-wife, I have a very limited data base on the subject. I won’t discuss my ex-wife in this post as that is far too private for a blog. I will offer some stories about firefighters in bed that I do know all too well.…