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Wildland Fires Rage Across the Carolinas in USA

By: Robert Avsec, Executive Fire Officer Frightening photos from wildfires burning in North Carolina. Now before any of our firefighter brothers and sisters out west say, “That’s not a real wildfire,” please keep in mind that here in the eastern USA we don’t combat fires on the scale and magnitude that you do out west. …

Insights to Improve Your Fire and EMS Department’s External Communications

Tanya Bettridge, a fire and life safety educator and essayist, offers a unique perspective on how lessons she derived from the recent U.S. Presidential Election can be used by fire and EMS departments to communicate better with their stakeholders.

Fire service training is much more than just the imparting of knowledge, the acquisition of new skills, and the ability to apply that new knowledge and skills. Fire service training, from entry-level through incumbent staff training, is also the vehicle by which a department’s culture and values are initially imprinted upon individuals or reinforced.

Preparing Firefighters for the Real World

Today’s firefighters face a multitude of situations daily that require knowledge, skills, and abilities far beyond those required to fight fires, provide medical care and rescue entrapped victims. Many of those situations require skills more akin to a social worker than that of a firefighter.

What does a future fire officer look like?

What traits do you believe make a firefighter a good candidate to promote to Company Officer? I asked several fire service colleagues the question: What traits to you look for in firefighters as potential company officers? Two of those colleagues, Fire Chief Bud Backer and Division Chief Susan Tamme, provided some really good insights back to me via e-mail. I could only use a few of their…

Ten Lessons Learned During my First Year as Fire Chief, Part II

Be a leader not just a manager. Model the behavior you expect to see. Empower personnel to make decisions befitting their rank. When personnel and officers are given the freedom to do this with the expectation that they make decisions supporting the mission, vision, and values of the department and the town an amazing thing happens, they do the right thing every time.

Ten Things I’ve Learned in My First Year as a Fire Chief, Part I

I made it clear that I set the bar very high for myself and others around me. I had a brief moment where I thought of lowering the bar, but I quickly removed that thought from my mind. I kept the bar high and made my people “reach for it” and achieve it. Which meant that I then pushed it even higher! So my advice to chiefs is: Don’t be afraid to continually raise the bar. You will be amazed at…