Not just what and how, but why!
Safety Week 2009 June 14-20, 2009 is Fire & EMS Safety, Health, and Survival Week. CFBT-US urges you to take this week to examine your own habits and behaviors and common practices in your fire service organization with a critical eye and identify ways in which you can reduce your risk and improve the effectiveness … Read more
In their article Realistic Live Burn Training You Can Afford published in the May 2009 issue of Fire Engineering, Kriss Garcia and Reinhard Kauffmann extolled the advantages of constructing a panelized wood frame structure lined with several layers of 5/8″ sheetrock (see Figure 1) as an alternative to other types of structural live fire training … Read more
Congratulations! I would like to offer my congratulations to my two friends and colleagues Inspector John McDonough, ASFM of the New South Wales Fire Brigades and Acting Inspector Shan Raffel, CIFireE, EngTech, ASFM of Queensland Fire Rescue on receiving the Australian Fire Service Medal (AFSM) for distinguished service to their nation’s fire service. This is … Read more
Most of the provisions outlined in National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 1403 Standard on Live Fire Training Evolutions, deal with mitigating the risk of traumatic injury or fatality. The standard addresses training prerequisites, but does not speak to medical and physical capacity prerequisites. The standard does specify that: The instructor-in-charge is responsible for provision of … Read more
Art and Science of Firefighting NIST has performed a wide range of research that can have a positive impact on the safety and effectiveness of firefighting operations. However, all too often, this information has not made it to front line firefighters. Dan Madrzykowski and Steve Kerber have made a concerted effort to address this issue … Read more
Application of the B-SAHF (Building, Smoke, Air Track, Heat, & Flame) organizing scheme for critical fire behavior indicators to photographs or video of structure fires provides an excellent opportunity to develop your knowledge of fire behavior and skill in reading the fire. Residential Fire Shortly after 1730 hours on May 19, 2008, companies from the … Read more
This post reviews articles on positive pressure ventilation written by Watch Manager Gary West of the Lancashire (UK) Fire and Rescue Service and Battalion Chief Kriss Garcia of the Salt Lake City Fire Department. Gary, Kriss, and I were recently in Australia for a meeting of the Institution of Fire Engineers (IFE) Compartment Firefighting Special … Read more
As discussed in my last post, lack of an adequate exhaust opening is a common factor when use of positive pressure ventilation causes or increases the severity of extreme fire behavior. Unfortunately there has not been a great deal of research examining why this is the case. Part of the challenge in conducting a scientific … Read more
Effective use of positive pressure ventilation aids in fire control and provides increased tenability throughout the fire building. However, inappropriate or ineffective use of this tactic has resulted in numerous near misses, injuries, and more than a few line of duty deaths. In many of these cases, positive pressure was applied with an inadequate exhaust … Read more
My last two posts (Contra Costa County Line of Duty Deaths (LODD) Part 1 & Part 2) examined the conditions and circumstances involved in the incident that took the lives of Captain Matthew Burton and Engineer Scott Desmond while conducting primary search in a small residential structure in San Pablo, California early on the morning … Read more