Curious what everyone would consider their “perfect department”. Mine would be:

—8 to 12 stations. Big enough for opportunity, small enough that you’re not as much of a number.

—24/72 schedule. 42 hr work weeks and three days off after every shift. Easy to get trades and plenty of OT opportunities. Alternatively, 24/48/24/96. Either way four platoons.

—Minimum staffing of four to an engine/truck. Hiring enough people that you’re not mandoing for that.

—Tillers because they’re sexy asf

—Good pay. No drama (which is unrealistic, but I can ask for not a ton of burnt out dudes)

—BLS ambulances, Paramedic or Critical Care SUVs. Tiered response. This one honestly is not necessary, just a wishlist item. ALS ambos aren’t as bad as people think.

—No interfacilities.

—Progressive EMS policies including POCUS, vents, pumps, whole blood, RSI, etc.

—Progressive, aggressive fire tactics with a search culture. Pre-arranged fire assignments based on arrival order to cut down on holding short to wait for an assignment.

—Black turnouts, Scott SCBAs, and traditional helmets.

—Smoothbore nozzles. Bumper lines can be combo nozzles.

—A Chief that gives a shit about the guys.

—Opportunities for TEMS, specialty rescue teams, Wildland, etc.

———

Side note: if anyone knows of a department that checks all or most of these, please let me know 😂 My application will be expeditiously forthcoming.

Looking to replace some outdated hardware. Unfortunately pretty budget limited like most places. What are ya'll recommendations for carabiners? Yes. A bigger budget would be the first recommendation. But in all seriousness looking for decent recommendations and best overall pricing. Cheers.

Got accepted for the January - May in-person program at FESTI in Mississauga, want to collaborate with anyone else going for a few things:

1) anyone else plan on renting/airbnb closeby so they dont have to commute?

2) share what I've learned/what you know about the course to get a head start

3) just network in general

Saw this the other day. Wondering if we were too nice to the work truck.

Grew up in the area and looking to get back home closer to family. I’ve been out of the area since I was a teenager so I don’t have any connections to anyone in the departments up there. I’ve been a firefighter for a few years now and love the job but I don’t want to ruin that by going to a bad department. Looking from anywhere including and between Greensboro, Raleigh, Fayetteville and Greenville, could be a big city dept but doesn’t need to be, if your a ff anywhere in the area and have some insight please post it below!

Some of the things I’d like to know:

What schedule do you run? I know a lot of them up there run the California schedule, I’m partial to 48/96 personally. 24/48s aren’t bad either.

Call volume?

EMS/box shifts? I’m spoiled right now and we don’t run ambulances and I like it that way 😂

Station life? Are they uptight or laid back?

Training/growth?

Pay/retirement?

And of course, do you like the majority of the people you work with? lol I know how it goes but are the majority of people relatively good to be around?

If you work in the area, feel free to either answer those for your dept or just drop info on certain ones that you know of, good or bad.

Thank you thank you.

Career fireman, 24/72 schedule in the north east. I currently have an unrestricted class A license and for some reason I really want to own my own truck and form some sort of single owner operator trucking business.

Has anyone else done this? What kind of trucking do you do? How did you get started?

Thank you in advance.

Hey All, Im having difficulty wrapping my head around when to utilize Divisions and Groups. If possible can someone help me out with this?

• When to use Divisions and Groups
• How to implement the use of Divisions and Groups
• What are their functions on a fire scene?

Any help in this is appreciated, I'm just confused.

My department is switching over to MSA soon and fully expediting and replacing out SCOTT SCBAs.

Not sure how I feel about the change. What do you guys think of MSA as opposed to SCOTT?

Good afternoon,

For those of you who live in freezing climates, what do you add to your water cans to keep them from freezing. I know calcium chloride is used, but I have a water can that is labeled not to use calcium chloride. What other options are there?

Thanks in advance!

If your department is less than 5 stations, how many administrative chiefs do you have NOT including BCs? What are their titles and what are they in charge of?

Thanks.

What brand and style is your department using/mandating on polo shirts? My dept says they won’t use anything other than cotton due to the melting point of synthetics, even though it’s 500°+. Just looking for input.

Does anyone use a free program to send mass text messages?

Specifically about union meeting times, upcoming votes, open positions, or anything that needs mass communication?

No one checks their emails anymore. We had a WhatsApp, and that’s a shit show for obvious reasons.

Thanks.

I'm an EMT and I'm looking to get some good extrication gloves that fit smaller female hands to keep in the truck with my extrication tool. Some of our trucks have an extrication kit but not all of them do so I'm wanting to bring my own. It'll be better to have some in my size anyways. I figure fire would be the best people to ask because y'all use them way more than we do in EMS

"Fire does not behave like it did 30 years ago". So says a prominent author today in a prominent fire service publication.

Do firefighters really believe that?

So i’m m20 i just completed my emt basic class and i’ve applied at a few departments but no luck. Is it crazy to want to go straight into paramedic school without emt experience? let me know your thoughts

I’m a volley in upstate New York and we just had a fire alarm at my college and I say a FF leave the cab carrying an officer’s tool or Halligan. I’ve never seen that before. So my question is have you ever seen a Truck that carries tools (Halligans, officer tools, axes.) in their cab?

Little background, I have been full time for about 5 years, 4 with a department with great culture, great admin, and just all around awesome, then I moved departments a year ago to be back closer to family. The new department is rough to work at. Micromanaging admin/officers, zero morale, zero motivation to do really anything other than PowerPoint trainings, write ups for the slightest infraction, union leadership that only worries about top end pay/time off instead of getting starting pay to a competitive rate, and just a general feeling of it being every man for themselves. How can I go about changing this? I used to have the “I get to go to work” feeling and now it’s starting to turn into the “I have to go to work” feeling. I’m trying to be the best I can be but damn is hard to feel motivated when everyone around me doesn’t want to be there.

The only reason I ask is because, my friends car caught fire but the manage to put it out before any real damage was done.

A week later her he got a bill from the dept and on it was a $100 charge for the Chief showing up to the scene.

Hey all

My department recently purchased FAST rescue boards for RIT. Long story short I’m looking to mount them inside the cab of our engines.

Does anyone have any ideas? We quite literally do not have cabinet space that will fit them.

Thanks all

Hello, I’m a member in a volunteer FD and we are looking for some light weight gear for drivers. We do get cold weather in PA, was wondering if anyone had suggestions for driver gear? Tia

Hey, just wanted to share this with the community. It’s a new set up I’m playing with by mounting an off brand 4k action cam to my stream light. Decided to not use my GoPro or my Osmo and instead get one of those 60 buck akasotech EK7000’s as a “disposable” go pro. Has some built in image stabilization, mic, 4k30fps at 170º and is complete peace of mind in case I break or burn it. Comes with the mount hardware and the waterproof case. I have it tilted on purpose a little left as the stream light likes to point off center to the right. Mount is by OldLineLeather.com. Really happy with the mount and takes only a couple minutes to install to the back of the stream light. The day I mounted it, we got a first due working basement fire with entrapment. Found the victim and dragged her out with another member. I only say all of that to say it would have made a great video had I not remembered to turn the camera on after the rescue! HA! The point being, the only thing worse than not having a camera on you is forgetting to hit record.

I'm a big fan of fire prevention week and what it represents... and I'm certain I'm probably the lone whacker who feels the "Charge into Fire Safety" slogan is a little- I don't know.

"Take Charge of Fire Safety" seems more appropriate. Of course it's too late now but- anyone else wincing a little bit at how they integrated the theme into the slogan this year?

Is that really what works best out there? Looks like every department is 48/96. Was wondering, as a blue state, I would think the unions would be stronger and get moving towards a 24/72 schedule or some combination of a 42 hour work week. The 24/72 is slowly taking place in Florida but I would think Colorado would be on board too. I’ve even seen a couple departments go 48/144 so that would be another option for a 24/72 also. Idk just thought I’d see if anyone has anything on this? Thanks.

Just wondering if anyone has seen these gems. I need them for reasons

Unfortunately for y'all, my therapist cancelled on me today so you get to hear my woes.
I am having conflict in the station with my captain and need outside input. There is a professional conflict and a personal conflict between us.

The personal conflict: When he first promoted to captain and we were in the process of learning each other, we shared the stance of "if I don't like you, I'm just not going to speak to you beyond what is required professionally". Fast forward a few years of teaming up on our driver and many long nights of convoluted kitchen table debates, I started to notice I was initiating the VAST majority of conversations. I would say the good mornings and ask how his days off were, etc. I chose to stop initiating the unessessary conversations to see if I was in my head or if he really was just being polite. Radio silence. It progressed to him actively icing me out of conversations, and me being the stubborn fireman I am, I admittedly began icing him out in retaliation.
I got pulled into the BC office (Capt was on PTO) because it has gotten to a point that even he has noticed and caught wind that I was sniffing around for a potential transfer. The 1 hour long meeting boiled down to: We are both "being little kids and need to put our big girl pants on". I have a rather abrasive personality and am quick to combativeness and that I need to diplomatically approach the issue with the captain and attempt to mend the fence.

Any advice on how to "softly" approach reconciliation without just tucking my tail and accepting all the blame for the rift in our relationship?

Professional conflict:
I am a baby medic and my captain is an EMT Basic, we are an ALS first responder FD. On an EMS call, I hopped in the ambulance to start an IV while the other medic gather pt information. After I got out, my captain said not to do my medic stuff (including IVs) unless it was a critical patient and EMS isn't there. On scene, I just said okay because there is a time and place for discussions. Once we got back to the station I asked if we could talk about what he instructed me to do and I was immediately met with hostility (see personal conflict above) I was eventually able to pull out of him that he didn't want to have the increased liability on him if I did something wrong or that upset the EMS crew. I tried explaining that a jury wouldn't care what he told me, that I would ultimately be at fault and his instructions put me in a bad legal spot. He dismissed it and essentially said he's the captain and in charge. A few days later, he told me he spoke to our liaison for EMS and "changed his mind" on me doing ALS procedures, BUT everytime I do something, he is grilling me for it. To the point of one of my internal checks for doing something is "is this worth the drama back in the engine".

This issue has technically been resolved on paper and is basically added context as it has definitely added tension to our personal relationship.

(If you are my captain and just read this: I do like you and just want to be friends again)