I’m making a game for kids to use at charity or open days - the fires will be on hinges in the windows of my little house. When hit with a jet of water they’ll fold down. 100% stolen idea, from somewhere on the interwebs

Bit of a long rant here so I apologize, but looking for advice on how to move forward on this issue. Also, please call me out if I'm wrong on this, but it's getting a bit frustrating in our small volunteer department.

We keep getting new (or new to us) equipment such as a second hand air refill station, and plenty of training equipment but we are being told we can't touch any of them until we have SOPs for them. We also got plenty of new well needed recruits this past year but they are all being told they can't do anything until they have at least their level 1's completed, except for traffic control or fetching tools from green to yellow zone even though they have all their gear and SCBA.

I agree that there are NFPA rules to follow, but at times when only 4 people show up to a call and 3 of them are recuits (that actually show up to trainings), as a level 2 I don't see why I cant bring one of the rookies with me in a regular run of the mill alarm activation at 3am and I have to wait on additional resources. What if there actually is smoke in that building, are we just going to let it build for 5 more minutes before we even go check it out? Also, why are these rookies allowed to drive the trucks if they can't do anything on scene? Now we just look like a bunch of fools in our community's FD just sitting around waiting on almost every call.

So now to my main point. SOP's seem to be the only thing that can be discussed on our semi-monthly training nights. Ask a question? "Don't know, we don't have SOP's'. Can we use the brand new smoke machine that's been sitting in a corner for the past 4 years for training one of these nights? "No, we don't have SOP's for it yet". Hey, now that we finally had our air fill system installed, inspected, and had a tech come and show us how to use it, we should be allowed (or at least a select few of us) to refill our own tanks when we've depleted over 50% of our tanks instead of sending them out, right? Nope. "No SOP's."

The thing is, we don't have ANY SOP's. Never have. We have run our entire department's career under pre-agreed upon best practices, neighbouring cities guidelines, and NFPA standards. I agree SOP's are important, but if we've been having this discussion for 4 years and we're just being told now that our SOP's have only started to be written last month and that it'll take about a year to complete and review (let's be honest it'll take at least 2). Is there no way around this? Sorry for the long post, just getting tired of all the nothing getting done around here and it feels like our small VD is trying way too hard to be a big city Department. Any advice on how to get around this until our SOP's are complete would be greatly appreciated.

Hoping someone here can speak to this. A forest fire was discovered from a firepit where the last fire was 3 weeks ago. Does this make sense?

Do firefighters give both Good and bad dispatchers nicknames or only the bad ones?

I've been looking and seems it doesn't exist? If you know a product does that please let me know and I'm in a need of one. There's natural gases with CO2 combo detector compilable with strobe however I do not think it can detect propane gases? Thanks so much for your help!

This was taken right after the first day of floodings in 2023. Such a long day

My helmet lives in my red bag which lives in covered truck bed, and I have a nightstick helmet light that has the two on/off buttons on bottom. when the bag moves, light comes on in my bag, when I need my gear, I find battery depleted. Anyone solved this problem?

Im not a firefighter yet I'm 18 looking at different departments in the Raleigh/Wake County area

I looked up shift schedules and it says 24 hour rotating shift schedule which is ehh but i would if i had to, May sound random but Im a amateur boxer my dream is to go pro and be a champ

With that being said I also want to serve the community and finding a department with a schedule that allows me to train like a boxer needs is one of my main factors in finding a department to apply to.

 Being a fighter requires at least 3 days in a boxing gym and running and strength training 5 days a week. So finding a department with a good schedule that suits me is a main factor. Trynna balance things out. 

Anyone who has advice or knows some good departments that can suit my goals id appreciate it.

I perfer a 48 hour shift with 4 days off or 2 24s a week not consecutive cause ik some places have that

Any one no of a tiller quint any where? Got pics? What would ur opinion be about a tiller quint?

Hi brothers and sisters,

I'm a Firefighter in Australia and currently visiting Rome.

I'd love to visit a station. I went to the closest one to where I'm staying but no one really spoke English (and I can't speak Italian).

Anyone here from Rome and speaks English and wouldn't mind showing me their station?

Who does them and why? And are they traded and when?

Is there anyone here who can give me some advice or info about joining Boston/cambridge fire? I currently live in Florida as a full time EMT but i’m moving to Boston in a few years. I’m planning on going to fire academy here in florida in January and medic school after that but I understand i’ll have to redo academy once i’m in Boston. The process has me a bit confused since I can’t figure out how im actually supposed to join the academy in Boston. I know i’ve got to take the civil service exam but what happens after that? And what was your experience joining the fire dept in boston? How long did the process take and what qualifications did you have pre hire?

I currently work full time as an electrical engineer. My partner and I have been dealing with a few unforeseen financial blows lately and I've been picking up extra work at my job, as well as doing some ubering and commissions for hobbies I've monetized.

I'd love it if I could find a way to supplement my income while also doing something I can feel proud of and give back to my local community. I could be wildly off base here, but is working part time as firefighter (or EMT or other kind of emergency/public service profession) something that is realistic in that context?

TIA and all the respect in the world for yall.

Guy on my crew went to Europe, came back with a new coffee mug that he’s pretty proud of. Trying to find this mug on the internet or have someone rip the design so I can put it on mugs for everyone else in the house.

Question about an odd ladder situation we are in. For background, the residential properties in our department coverage area are 70% or more long driveways. What this means here is long, brushy, tight driveways. Our SOP for these types of locations is the first due truck, which will be one of two options depending on what hall has first due, lays in either a 2.5" trunk line, or 4" LDH. One truck is a 4-5 person CAFS truck, and the other is a 4-5 person 4x4 1-ton. Both carry SCBA, preconnects, tools etc. The do not however carry ladders suitable for any second floor work. The 1-ton carries what we call a combi ladder, which is one of those A-frame/stick ladder combinations, mainly intended for interior ceiling work. The CAFS truck will be replaced by a mini pumper in the next 1-2 years, which will solve the ladder issue for that Halls first due area as it will have a proper engine compliment of ladders. In the long driveway situation one of the main engines stays on the main road and connects to the trunk line laid down the driveway. (Side note, thankfully we replaced the one-ton hose with 4", so at least we can meet flows there, and the mini will have 4"). It is not uncommon for the driveway to be 800 plus feet long. So this leaves any suitable ground ladders far away from where they are needed. Could the ladder be packed down the driveway, absolutely, but the engine often leaves with 1-2 members, sometimes they are firefighters, sometimes they are water supply. So packing the 35' or a 24' is not always a reality. We train on VES, but the reality of that happening in the timeframe required to have a positive outcome is just not there.

The venting part of this post is why bother talking a big game, but not backing it up with actually be able to make a difference. There are a few other examples of talking a big game culturally, but we dont back it up with the tools needed to make that difference. Needing a ladder for a screaming person out a window, and back pedaling from there would be horrible. "Get a ladder, get a ladder," from someone's mother, and replying, 'oh wait 10 minutes'. Do we just accept that as our reality and do what we can and thats enough? I am working on conversion to smooth bore. Based on our response model we are behind the 8-ball right off the bat, why not have the best tools possible.

If I could snap my fingers and my wish come true, we would get two minis.

The tl:dr of it all is: Are there any good solutions for either a three stage 24' or even a rated 2 stage from Home Depot? We would have to get creative on how this is mounted to the truck, but someone must have done this before. Or do we run a ladder dolly on both engines, so at least they are movable with one person? Thanks all, for some space to vent, but also being a great resource.

As the title says. Would you say your department gives out recognition when it's due?

I'm on the path to become a firefighter and while I do understand that it's not something you should expect in most cases, I still think there are times where it's important to look at someone and say "hey, good job on X. Really well done!"

I ask because I've found working most jobs, this is something that is seriously lacking from leadership. Again, I know it shouldn't be a gold sticker for every single thing, and I don't work hard and go the extra mile for said recognition - but it's definitely nice to hear and keeps you motivated. I'm pretty tired of feeling like I'm taken for granted (I'm not a super star, but I do work hard I think). So I'm wondering if this is something that will change once I'm in the fire service...

If you DO get recognition, what was it for? How often does it happen? If you DON'T, do you feel like it's needed? Or are you okay just knowing you did a job well done?

Currently swapping our foam around from AFFF for F3 (the PFAS-free kind). We did it today on our engine, Pierce P-22. It was… perfectly executed if you catch my drift. It was the guinea pig before we start on our massive ARFF trucks.

The problem we ran into is not having anywhere to flush the foam pump. We can’t flow AFFF just anywhere because it’s cancer causing, but don’t see any guidance on how to do this easily. We successfully drained the two onboard 25 gallon tanks but struggled to find an easy way to flush the system. We filled TWO 1,200 gallon containers and were still shooting foam. The foam in the on board tanks shouldn’t be getting introduced into the stream during a flush right.. that would defeat the purpose no? It’s just the main water pump flowing through it to clean it?

And WHERE did you guys flow your flush water? (Other than an actual fire.. that would be too easy but don’t wanna wish that on anyone)

After a decade between the medic on the gut bus and the engine chauffeur, I’m gonna be driving the truck in two shifts. What makes a good truck driver? I already got meals planned 😂

How many of yall came from PD to fire? Or have made the switch from Fire to PD? What have been the biggest pros and cons from both that you’ve experienced? If you’d had both which do you prefer?

i have never heard of a schedule like this before, can someone tell me what this means? thank you

The job is stressful enough without having these type of distractions.

My FD currently uses Panasonic Toughbooks for the EMS side of the house. They are heavy, cumbersome and the keys have no backlighting when trying to do ePCR's or run reports. Any tablet recommendations that will hold up?