Floor and wall collapse at a residential fire sends three firefighters into the basement and results in RIT rescues.

Credentials vs. Competence. Kevin Milan asks the question and provides the insights. Education and experience are important, but both must be updated throughout your fire service career.

This edition of Ten Minutes in the Street TM is looking at the considerations for the first-due engine company upon arrival at a well involved single family residential house fire. Arrivals and subsequent deployments during night time periods pose ever increasing challenges to arriving officers in the ability to ascertain and recognize factors that will have a direct or ancillary affect in the developing incident action plan, tactics and task assignments.

        It always starts out this way…..a quiet Saturday afternoon. The shift tour has been fairly quiet or you just happened to stop into the fire station for a cup of coffee and some kitchen table talk in the day room. The bells/tones come in for a report of smoke coming from a building located […]

First-due company operations are influenced by a number of parameters and factors; some deliberate and dictated, others prescribed and prearranged and yet others subjective, biased, predisposed or at times accidental, casual and emotional. For many of you riding the seat or arriving assuming command; you understand the connotations and implications I’m making here. Here’s an […]

Modern incident demands on the fireground are unlike those of the recent past requiring incident commanders and commanding officers to have increased technical knowledge of building construction with a heightened sensitivity to fire behavior, a focus on operational structural stability and considerations related to occupancy risk versus the occupancy type.   Strategies and tactics must […]

The Waldbaum’s Supermarket Fire and Collapse FDNY 1978   The Waldbaum Super market fire, Brooklyn, New York occurred on August 2, 1978. Six firefighters died in the line of duty when the roof of a burning Brooklyn supermarket collapsed, plunging 12 firefighters into the flames. The fire began in a hallway near the compressor room as […]

As an officer, you need to stay abreast of operational issues and situations in order to be knowledgeable and conversant with the variables that may affect company deployments and subsequent operations.