May 2009

Basement Fires: Difficult, Challenging and Dangerous

July 22, 2009

Basement fires, or cellar fires, are some of the most difficult, challenging and dangerous operations you will ever encounter. Lots of basement fires result in loss of buildings...

Rescue

Hazmat Response On the "Big Island" of Hawaii

July 22, 2009

Hawaii County, sometimes referred to as the "Big Island," is the easternmost county in the State of Hawaii. It covers an area of 5,087 square miles, but is still growing because...

Tech & Comm

In-House CAFS Education

July 22, 2009

Whether you're a full-scale career agency or a tiny rural volunteer operation, fire departments have one thing in common when it comes to training: keeping up with the latest...

Safety & Health

The Truth Behind Temperature Sensing — Part 2

Brad Harvey

July 22, 2009

Last month, we opened the discussion on temperature sensing with your thermal imager. As a quick review, the actual name for temperature sensing is radiometry. Temperature sensing...

Operations & Training

There's a Fine Line Between Secondary Assessments and Sexual Assault

July 22, 2009

Every so often, I hear of or read a story that makes me wonder if it is true or not. The most recent of these was an article in the Cleveland, OH, newspaper,The Plain Dealer....

More content from May 2009

Safety & Health

Cardiovascular Disease in Firefighters: Who Is at Risk?

July 22, 2009

Rescue

Extrication Challenges Of Advanced Steel in Vehicles — Part 1

July 22, 2009

SUBJECT:Advanced SteelTOPIC: Extrication Challenges of Advanced Steel in Vehicles, Part 1 OBJECTIVE: Review the cutting capabilities of vehicle rescue tools including hand tools...

Apparatus

Racing to Death

July 22, 2009

In recent years, there has been an escalation of responding fire apparatus crashing into each other and in the past few weeks it has gotten even worse. In this column, we have...

Safety & Health

Fire Escape Dangers

July 22, 2009

By request of the author, this article is not available online

Leadership

Here's Hoping The Stimulus Plans Work

July 22, 2009

People a lot smarter than me will have to decide whether the stimulus packages being passed by Congress and signed by the President represent good public policy and make economic...

Operations & Training

Incident Safety in the Rural Environment:

July 22, 2009

What is the "rural environment?" Many people have definitions for the term "rural," but seldom are these rural definitions in agreement. For some inhabitants, rural can't be defined...

Operations & Training

BLOWN AWAY

July 22, 2009

On Sunday, May 25, 2008, at 4:59 P.M., Parkersburg, IA, a city of 1,889, was struck head on by an EF5 tornado. An EF5 tornado is the worst kind. A tornado of this magnitude generates...