Fire Critic An Unadulterated View of the Fire Service
This past weekend, I was in Nashville with my family. My parents live there. We had a great visit. The return trip home wasn’t all that great…we spent about 5 hours parked on Interstate 81 because of Tractor-Trailer accidents. I thought truckers are always complaining about the 4 wheelers. Needless to say, it sucked. My children did great though. We had fuel, food, wifi, an inverter, and 3 computers plus the tablet.
One slight change to this ever changing column “Best of the Rest”…The shoutout will now be one site instead of potentially 3 separate with site/Facebook/Twitter. It will more closely resemble the old “Monday Morning Shoutout. This column is sometimes worked on all week long if I have time. I add to it when I see something neat to share.
As always, we have a blast over at the Fire Critic Facebook page. You should check it out and click “like” to make sure you stay caught up on what we are talking about!
Shoutout – Working The Job
Web Site: Working the Job – “Work the job, don’t let the job work you” written by Jason Jefferies
Facebook: Working the Job
Feature post: The 2012 Lent Challenge. “If I gave up something I hated then the challenge would be easy, for instance, I’d rather lick a boar’s anus than eat salmon patties, so if I gave up salmon patties there would be not hardship. This year is a doozy….drumroll…….No cussing.” Read it here
Also noted is his post on the North Carolina Breathing Equipment School. Check it out if you are in the area and attend!
uh oh...yeah, a fill in driver backed through the door. The truck my father wanted to show me was at the garage. Apparently there is a 2000 gallon tanker/engine normally there. They run 300 calls a month in the outskirts of Nashville. See the other photos on Facebook by clicking on the photo.
Quick Drills
You can view all of the weekly drills by FirefighterCloseCalls.com here. Try these two at the firehouse this week:
News and Opinion
Willie Wines Jr. (IronFiremen.com) posted several great articles recently:
- Paying My Respect
- A Good Send Off
- A Bunch of FOOLS
- Covering a Shift – not just ANY shift…one of my shifts. Don’t forget, I work with the Best Fire Company in the World.
The Vampire Diaries Taylor Kinney Lands Firefighter Role – Former The Vampire Diaries werewolf, Taylor Kinney, has nabbed a lead role in new firefighter pilot Chicago Fire. Deadline reports that the NBC drama will be “action-driven” and set amongst the men and women of the Chicago Fire Department. The pilot has been penned by Wanted and 3:10 to Yuma writers Michael Brandt and Derek Haas with Jeffrey Nachmanoff (Homeland) directing.
Chili Firefighter LODD – RadioReference.com is claiming that “Firefighter Dies in Fire, City of La Granja (6:37 CST)” Read/listen here
STATter911.com – The Saga continues in DC. DCFD firefighters learn more about a Battalion Chief who might get demoted over his discipline of a crew who had beer in the firehouse. The kicker is that the beer was dropped off by a caring citizen. Read more here
I asked for a photo on Facebook and got a ton...This was the first one. New Orleans Fire Dept Creole No. 9 by Dawn Dawson. Click the photo for more of them.
I Never Wanted to be a Firefighter (Blog) – I would have pawned shit for it. The progression or tolerance I would have built up for fire would surely rival crack, heroin, and alcohol. I can see myself, haggard, unshaven, shaking in the cold and dark. Stumbling down the back ally in the worst part of town seeking a fix.
Me. “Hey what do you got?”
Fire Dealer. “I got some good stuff man. I got a three alarm warehouse fire. I got a, apartment fire, on a winter night.” Continue reading here
I asked and I received. The Facebook fans shared a ton of photos when I promted them for one. You can check out some of the other photos on Fire Critic FB. The photo to the right is from Dawn Dawson. View the other images here. Interesting enough, she also shared this link:
Support New Orleans Firefighters
Volunteer Firefighter Killed in New Jersey Car Accident – (non-LODD) David Gulig Jr., an 18-year-old volunteer firefighter, was killed in a New Jersey car accident when the truck he was driving slid on a patch of ice and slammed into a telephone pole.
FireRescue1.com– Firefighters make CO rescues on routine Maine inspection. Firefighters/inspectors Eion Pelletier and Lt. Shawn Esler went to inspect new store, saved 2 ‘who probably were moments from dying’. Continue reading
Tiger Schmittendorf – Tiger weighs in on a recent post by FireGeezer about Recruitment videos. Word is that he read it over lunch…must have been a long article! Read it here: Video Killed the Recruitment Star
Brotherhood Cuts – We are open for business. This is a very cool event that is kicking off on March 10th in North Carolina.Read more about it here. Brotherhood Cuts is an initiative to support the National Firefighters Endowment. Myself and Willie Wines Jr. are looking forward to more events in the future!
