I was just checking out some of the new discussions and reading blogs. I haven't had a chance to catch up in a while. It has been a long winter. I whine about ice & snow & cold weather, yet we have been lucky in our area to have had no more of Mother Nature's wrath than we have. I can't imagine what the folks in KY and other areas have gone through. I know I am not the only one ready for spring. At least the daylight hours are longer these lately. I noticed crocus poking through the… Continue

Last night my Fire Department held our annual Holiday dinner. It is the one time of the year when we get together away from the station. In the past few years we have had all kinds of issues with people being people and things not working out the way they should and some people going away with hurt feelings, angry or just didn't show up for the event at all.



As with many volunteer fire departments from time to time, we have had "cliques" or groups of members not always working with… Continue

Thanksgiving came and went. This was the first year I remember since my mother made me go to Indianna with my husband to his Mother's for the holdiay the year my Dad died, (1982) that my family wasn't together. Parts of us were. I guess it is time I realize that family isn't as important to others as it is to me.



Four days off tends to make me sluggish on Monday but it was off to work. It wasn't one of my better days. This is the beginning of the end . . . of the semester on Dec… Continue

This is a reply I wrote to a discussion of "piercings". I thought it was worth repeating. You can agree or disagree but if you THINK about what I am saying, I have accomplished my mission. As always, this is my blog & if you don't want to read it, there is a little button there you can push so you can go back to another page & you don't have to read what I am thinking or how I feel about this topic.



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Yes, I do know about steam burns, from experience. That… Continue

On November 14, 1970 Southern Airways Flight 932 crashed into a hillside near Huntington, WV. The plane departed from Greenville, NC where the Marshall University football team had played a game against Eastern Carolina University. All 75 people on board were killed including most of football team, the coaching staff, members of the media & several team supporters. It was a very sad day in the history of Huntington, and the entire tri-state area and one of if not THE biggest tradgedies to… Continue

We did such a good job last night. I like "good" fires where everything goes right. Well, almost everything. This morning @ 5am we were called back to the same location for a "re-kindle". There was no fire @ 11 pm when we left the premisis. Anyway, the FM (we are giving him a work out too) has it under investigation but he says that it could have still been part of the original fire but hadn't flamed yet. If a spark blew over into the unburned part of the crawlspace it might have smoldered… Continue

It's funny, we go several days without a call from time to time. Most of our calls are First Responder EMS calls or MVAs, small fires and THIS WEEK brush fires. Except that Monday afternoon we responded to a fully envolved structure fire. It was a total loss, not really a wonder considering that it was totally engulfed when we arrived on scene up a little windy, rutty dirt road. The IC called out to the water officer to send in a tanker, the truck went in, dumped his load & turned around… Continue

I was reading comments on the discussion "What motivates you?" So many people wrote things that I can say are part of the reason I am a firefighter. There are so many reasons but I think the biggest one, the one that keeps gnawing at me is that I don't know how not to be a firefighter.



When I was little, I watched my uncle go to calls & I wanted to go with him. As I grew older, I became more involved with the fire department in any way I could. My closest friends were involved… Continue

In the past couple of days we have discussed a court case in KY where the fire department is being sued by a homeowner who states that the fire department was not prepared or negligent in fighting a fire on their property. They now want to hold the department responsible for the property damage. We have also read about another court case in Canada where a ff driving his POV, struck & killed a civilian at the scene of an MVA. The litigation says that the fire department should have used… Continue

I have spent the last hour or so on FFN checking on the discussions I am interested in & looking through my groups for topics of interest. One of my favorite groups is Command Safety where Christopher J. Naum, SFPE posts some very good information & references. One of his topics of conversation was Leadership. There is a very well written piece with some "tips" on Leadership & how to become a better leader. Very good reading for anyone particularly those in officer positions. He… Continue

Its the end of October & at my station that means its time to make applebutter. It is a tradition now but we still sell as much as we can make and it is one of our biggest fund raisers. Some things have changed but some things about making "butter" never will.



The making/sales of applebutter started back in the 60s when the dept was first formed as a way to make money. Of course back then there were orchards all over the township & the apples were grown locally & much of… Continue

I don't understand people sometimes. For some reason it seems that several of the discussions I have been following have gotten a bit personal & testy. I don't know why we feel in necessary to call each other names.



We've fussed about grammar & spelling. Although there have been studies that prove that a person can read words that are misspelled & we are used to using the spelling & grammer check on our computers so we don't paty attention to type Os becaue it fixes… Continue

Today I read two posts on FFN that made me think about CISM - Critical Incident Stress MANAGEMENT.



One was the death of a Chief which is often devestating for the members. My 1st Chief was my uncle when he passed in 1988 it killed me in more ways than one. After that MY CHIEF was a man I had known since I was a child playing @ the fire station with his kids. He taught me a lot about being a PERSON as well as an abundance of things they don't teach you in class about fire fighting. He… Continue

I've tried writing this blog a couple of times & something always happens. In one of the groups I am subscribed to: Female Firefightrs a couple young ladies are having some issues with anti-female sentiment and discrimination. I know too that new fire fighters get picked on even if they are not women. It the nature of the "brotherhood". I read a blog titled Men are from Mars & women are from the continental US that made me giggle & think.



When I wanted to join the FD as a… Continue