By Kriss Garcia



“For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.”

--Benjamin Franklin



This year, the organization known as the International Fire Instructors Workgroup (IFIW) met for its third time in Ottawa, Canada. Keeping to our original charter of a small yet…

By William Sturgeon



Let’s face it, the U.S. fire service is the most technologically advanced fire service in the world. We have the latest equipment, established incident command systems, set standards, and for the most part, a strong emphasis on training—and yet, a significant number of firefighters are injured and killed every year. Why? Because we’ve failed to understand how human error contributes to mishaps on the fireground.



It has been shown that 85% of all…

At 1924 HRS on Nov. 9, 1872, a fire broke out in the basement of a commercial warehouse. Although the incident occurred 138 years ago, the Great Boston Fire, as it later became known, is still Boston’s largest urban fire to date, and remains one of the most costly fire-related property losses in U.S. history.

By the time firefighters gained control of the fire, 12 hours after it started, 65 acres of Boston’s downtown area were destroyed; 776 buildings, as well as a…