Sinopsis
News and Issues For Today's First Responders.
Episodios
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Do You Know C.L.U.E.S. for Your TIC??
01/10/2020 Duración: 01h42minWelcome our monthly installment of “MAKE DUE,” with Capt. Nick Peppard, Sean Duffy and our guest, Capt. Joe DeVito. In this episode, Capt. DeVito, with twenty years’ experience and, who has become an excellent instructor in the use of thermal imaging cameras (TIC’s), makes a strong point that TIC’s are not just for overhaul. As a matter of fact, your TIC is an invaluable tool for your size-up!Capt. DeVito begins with a quick review of the key terminology regarding different TIC terms and capabilities. Not all TIC’s are created equal and it is imperative for you to know the “ins and outs” of YOUR camera! If you do not to learn to use it correctly and efficiently, it becomes nothing more than an expensive doorstop!Capt. DeVito also explains the acronym he uses when conducting a size-up, C.L.U.E.S. At only five letters, it is an excellent guide for you to remember and make use of at every size-up. Mastering how your TIC works and using the C.L.U.E.S. acronym, might just save the life of a victim or, another fire
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Behavioral Health in Fire & EMS
17/09/2020 Duración: 01h41minWhen the average person thinks about firefighters, paramedics and EMTS, the adjectives that often come to mind include, brave, caring, compassionate, putting others’ needs first, etc. The words they often do not think of include, depressed, anxious, upset, confused and more. Why? While most of us love our jobs and helping others when it is most needed, that “love” does not include the pain, trauma, tragedy and more, that we often see. My guest today is Jeff Dill, a former firefighter and founder of the FHBA (Firefighters’ Behavioral Health Alliance (www.ffbha.org). For nearly ten years, Jeff was the only one with a connection to the fire service, who has been keeping track and validating the suicides of our brothers and sisters in fire and EMS. Listen as Jeff and I discuss what he has seen and learned and stands read to share and teach others. Just like our international fight against cancer in the fire service, we have also had the Behavioral Health Initiative for several years now. The question is though,
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What's Hiding in Our Bunker Gear!?!
10/09/2020 Duración: 01h27minSadly, the word, “cancer,” is all too common in today’s fire service. Sure, we have made some bold strides in both educating our members and providing tools and funding in many cases, to mitigate our exposure to carcinogenic compounds. However, there was one place we never thought to look for it, if it were not for a former Worcester MA firefighter and his wife. That location? The very bunker gear we wear to protect us from this crap!“Miss D” sent a letter to a nuclear scientist at Notre Dame University with a piece of her husband’s bunker gear. The researcher is our guest, Dr. Graham Peaslee. Using the equipment in his lab, he first tested these pieces and found the presence of certain, unhealthy compounds. He then went on to test multiple samples of gear from still-in-the-bag new sets, to gear dating back to the 1970’s. ALL CONTAINED THESE COMPOUNDS.Even though Dr. Peaslee states there are several more years of testing to come, there is a lot to learn from our discussion on this podcast. And if there is one
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The How & Why of Leadership + ??
29/08/2020 Duración: 02h03minIt is the “buzz-word” of the fire service today - “Leadership.” With about 1.2 million firefighters in the U.S., there are probably about 1.2 million definitions of fire service leadership!In this second podcast of our fifth season, I am joined by a well-educated and well-trained leader in the fire service, Lt. Jason Liska, aka “The Can Man,” who is also a dear friend and colleague, in more than just the fire service! Jason is often found instructing at both the Florida State Fire Academy or the Lake County Fire Academy and “leadership” is one of his favorite topics. In our interview, Jason and I share what we have learned and taught regarding leadership; Jason in the fire service and me in the world of nonprofit. While seemingly polar opposites, they share a great deal. We focus on the “how” and “why” of leadership from both views – a firefighter looking to take on a leadership role and the firefighter who is already in a leadership position and how he/she works to find the next leader coming up. And we both
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We Kick-Off a new Season & a New Monthly Feature - "Make Due"
13/08/2020 Duración: 01h41minHere is a fact – approximately eighty percent (80%) of America’s firefighters serve in suburban departments! Sure, they might work in “cities,” but when we think about urban firefighting, we think of FDNY, Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh and many more. But most of us are not in cities that large. We may be close to one, but it still means we are suburban firefighters. Sure, we have mixed usage, i.e., residential, industrial, commercial, etc. You may even have a high-rise or two or three! So, what is the difference?The difference is that our departments (including career, volunteer, part-paid, etc.) certainly do not have the funding or the number of personnel that our urban brothers and sisters have. If they call a “box,” they will probably have 2-3 engine companies, two trucks (tiller, platform, quint, etc.) a heavy rescue, rehab bus, and much more! Does your department (not counting mutual aid) have that much support when you strike a box for a working fire?We are happy to bring you the monthly series, “Make Du
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Chief John Salka & Chief Rick Lasky
06/07/2020 Duración: 01h05minOne of the most lasting discussions in the fire service, at least since I started in 1977, are those about leadership and mentoring. No matter your generation or your background, when we joined up we were all “rookies,” “probies,” “newbies,” or any other name you wish to attribute to the newest member in your “house.” However, to achieve that sought-after goal of “riding the rig,” we had to learn to be firefighters. My guests on this episode are Chief (ret) John Salka and Chief (ret) Rick Lasky. If you have been in the fire service for more than a year or two, you know these two great officers. Since back in the ‘90’s, Chiefs Salka and Lasky got together and dedicated themselves to teach the importance of strong leadership and the high value of mentoring in the firehouse. And not only do they teach these topics in the fire service, they teach their courses to almost every branch of our Armed Forces!We invite you listen to their words. Whether you are a front-line firefighter, senior firefighter, officer, or e
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Who Knew? This Doctor Did!
22/06/2020 Duración: 01h31minWhen most of us first heard about the coronavirus, we probably thought that is was a problem for the Chinese to solve. That opinion held until we saw it begin to spread throughout East Asia and Europe. But who thought it could “swim” across the Atlantic or Pacific to reach our shores?My guest on this episode of “5-Alarm Task Force” one of those who did! Dr. James Augustine has served as the Medical Director for numerous fire, and EMD agencies in the Eastern U.S. From Atlanta GA to Dayton OH, along parts of the East Coast and into Florida, Dr. Augustine shares with us his long history of being part of an organized response to many of the “well-known” viruses, going back to the 1980’s until now, dealing with HIV, SARS, Ebola and now the virus that can result in Covid-19.While our lives have been turned topsy-turvy since March, it is good to know that there are excellent medical teams who start preparing for these type of emergencies, long before most of us even know about them. Tune in on your favorite podcast
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2020 Safety Stand Down - Safety at Roadway Emergencies
15/06/2020 Duración: 28min“DAMN!!! That was fricfkin’ close!” you exclaim, as you are standing next to your Heavy Rescue on a busy, four-lane road. Your engine and ladder helped setup a “blocking” safety to lane to allow you to work on an extrication. But that semi that just passed you ran over half your orange cones!This week, June 14-20 is the annual, joint, IAFC –- NVFC Safety Stand Down. During this week, fire and EMS departments are encouraged to suspend non-emergency activity to focus on the topic. And this year, that topic is our safety when working emergencies on active roadways. Last year, we lost 40 first responders to accidents on these sites. And many might have been avoided.My guests on this special episode are Jack Sullivan, CSP, CFPS, Training Director of the Responder Safety Institute and Todd Leiss TIMC, Assistant Director of Training. You will hear them relate some of the tragedies that have occurred when our “safety zone” was invaded by a vehicle, be it an auto, a semi, or anything in between.If you are a regular li
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Finding the Work/Life Balance
03/06/2020 Duración: 02h09minWe try to do IT. No matter our vocation or avocation, most of us try to do IT! OK, so what is, “IT?” Well, look at it this way – people have jobs, from first responders to cement works, from pool installers to meat cutters, from first responders to bank presidents, and from teachers to neurosurgeons, we all try to find some way to juggle our professional lives with our persona lives. Sometimes we meet with success and other times, we fail miserably. This is where my guest comes in – Dr. Donnie Hutchinson.Dr. Hutchinson, a college professor, as well as a national and local speaker for the IAFF and many other vocations, specializes in helping folks find that balance between work and life. This is especially difficult for numerous professions, including all branches of First Responders. Between the varying shift hours, we work and some of the situations we face on a day-by-day basis, finding that balance may look like a “pipe dream.”In this podcast, Dr. Hutchinson and I discuss the challenges that many of us fa
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Crisis Management
18/05/2020 Duración: 01h32minIf you are older than 18-20, you probably have had to deal with some form of crisis; be it very small one like a broken shoelace when dressing for a special occasion, someone close to you was ill or a major job interview was lost due to a technicality. None of us is immune to the concept of crisis, however, we are often defined by how we manage that crisis!My guests on this episode of “5-Alarm Task Force,” are Chief (ret) Dan Jones and his business partner, Kelly Walsh. Together, they have spoken at departments across the country on numerous topics of leadership, i.e., management, becoming a leader, finding an excellent leader, traits and much more. They have joined us before, and their podcasts always are enthusiastically received.In this podcast, “Chief Dan” and Kelly address one of the most important facets of strong leadership and that is Crisis Management. And, unless you have been in your personal safe room, fallout shelter or in a cave for the past few months, THIS is a time of crisis management. We ha
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Is There More 5-Alarm Task Force to Come?
27/04/2020 Duración: 04minThis weekend (4/24-26/2020)the entire Windows Library folder entitled, "MUSIC" was lost in an unauthorized transfer that Windows performed during a reboot to its OveDrive cloud platform. All the files built up over the nearly 4 years of the show were lost. Will I or can I recover from such a loss is yet to be determined. Until next time, Stay Safe, Stay Well and remember to take of each other.
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Episode 4-22-Anthony Mangeri - Staying Safe Amid Coronavirus
13/04/2020 Duración: 01h34minFor well over a month, our lives and the lives of millions of people across six of the seven continents, have been turned upside down. The loss of life has been like nothing that has been seen since 1918! And the interruptions to our lives, from home quarantines, online schooling for our children, a ridiculous run on toilet paper, etc. My guest on this podcast is Anthony Mangeri, a certified Public Manager, volunteer firefighter/EMT and he has many years’ experience in public health management. In this episode, Anthony guides us on the path of facts, not fables. You may have heard some of what he shares, yet I am sure that there will be some info that you will find worthwhile. We want you, our first responders to be safe. This is a whole new EMS world that we have never seen before. For firefighters and law enforcement, often the first ones on-scene, we want you to be safe. -Photo Courtesy of the CDC
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Keeping First Responders Safe Amidst the Coronavirus
27/03/2020 Duración: 01h27minIt is all over the news! It has invaded our lives and everything we do! It is the Coronavirus. For well over a month, it has changed our entire perspective into our daily lives; what we do, where we go and who we can and cannot see. No one is more affected by this pandemic than our first responders, from our amazing dispatchers, to our firefighters, LEO’s, paramedics/EMT’s, doctors, nurses, road rangers and recovery operators. This podcast is for all you.My guest, Todd LeDuc has been a member of the IAFC-SHS committee board of directors for 15 years. In most of his nearly 30 years with Broward County Fire-Rescue, he focus was and still is, on the health, wellness and fitness-for-duty of his firefighters. Today, as the Chief Strategy Officer for Lifescan Wellness Centers, he focus remains the same, just widened to all first responder agencies. In this podcast, Todd talks about the pandemic, its cause and effects, and, what we can do in an effort to continue to fill our roles but avoiding contamination properly
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The Prometheus Paradox - The American Fire Culture
23/03/2020 Duración: 02h03minOK, so we realize that going into the fire service, no matter if it’s career, volunteer, part-pay, wildland, etc., that it can be a dangerous job…very dangerous! And yes, most of us will put our lives on the line to save someone else that, for the most part, is a total stranger! We do so out of our deep commitment to our job. My guest, Dr. Burton A. Clark, EFO wrote a very interesting book, “I Can’t Save You, But I’ll Die Trying: The American Fire Culture.” In it and in this podcast, Dr. Clark posits that our American fire culture has it all wrong and we’re losing good firefighters because of it. This is not a position that he has developed overnight. With over 50 years in the American fire service, he has seen both the good and the bad in the “job.” And there is a lot of good in this job. No one will argue that point. However, it might be the right time to look at the “how” and “why” we do some of what we do that puts us in very, very perilous positions, too often with deadly results.
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Chief Dennis Rubin – Key Current Topics in the Fire Service
24/02/2020 Duración: 02h09minEven with all the electronic media at our hands, we often want ourselves to be “spoon-fed” news the way we want to hear it, as opposed to the actual content. When we allow ourselves to hear all the details, we can better understand the topics and discussion around them. This is especially true in the fire service. Though most of the time, when the fire service is in the news, it is usually good news. Yet, we do find ourselves on the “naughty” list at times, too. My guest on this podcast is no stranger to either and always has a great view of what’s happening and that is Chief Dennis Rubin. On this episode, Chief Rubin addresses three specific and important issues:1. A neutral view of the recent Atlanta rescue and follow-up2. Hazard Zone Accountability3. Brief Initial Report & Assuming CommandThese three topics might seem very easy to some and more difficult for others. With that in mind, Chief Rubin explains each one clearly and delivers pertinent information for each one. He does not issue orders, but me
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Episode 4-18 - Capt Nick Peppard - Firehouse Culture: Ideas over Egos
20/02/2020 Duración: 02h12minWhen we’re on the fireground or other emergency scene, most of the time we work as a great team. We know what to do, how to do it and what to do when we’re done. Sure, from time-to-time we may wonder about a particular task we’ve been assigned, but for the most part, it’s smooth running. However, back in the firehouse, it’s often a different story. Each firefighter is encouraged to ask questions, bring up new topics and propose new ideas. Too often though, a newer or less-experienced firefighter’s ideas or thoughts are dismissed out-of-hand. Why? Frequently, it’s because of another “herd of elephants” in the room – the egos of some of those firefighters with more experience. My guest on this podcast is Capt. Nick Peppard of the Holley-Navarre Fire District in Santa Rosa County, FL, located on the beautiful Florida Panhandle. Nick discusses the scenario described above. The newer, less-experienced firefighters are too often shut down or told to hold their ideas to themselves, too often due to one or more, seni
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Boost Morale by Letting FF's do FF's Things!
13/02/2020 Duración: 37minIn any organization, morale is one of the most important facets of the group, whether they are volunteers at a religious facility, workers in a mill, or the staff of a huge law firm encompassing an entire floor of a high-rise. Yet, it plays an even more important role for a cadre of first responders, especially, the fire service. Most of us have seen a fire department, maybe our own or a neighboring, where morale is low. While vigorously trained to fight structure fires and perform death defying high-level or collapse rescues, this group often loses morale when they do not respond to those types of call in a period of months or for some, years! Thus the question: “How do we boost their morale?”My guest, Capt. John Lovato, Jr., understands the predicament. In this podcast, Capt. Lovato shares his ideas of using required drill time to allow the “troops” to use many of those skills that they learned and developed. While live burns are rarer these days, he has his crews, drop feeder lines, throw ladders, stretch
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Chief Don Abbott - MAYDAY! MAYDAY!
03/02/2020 Duración: 02h15minEvery first responder must remember that any and every emergency scene remains fluid. No matter how hard we practice, review, prepare, etc., there is always an “unknown” factor that can, and often does, come into play. For the fire service, when that happens, we call a “MAYDAY!” Nevertheless, when we do, the scene often devolves into chaos. My guest on this episode is retired Chief Don Abbott. Chief Abbott runs the ProjectMayday.net website and, along with his group of various professionals, that have reviewed over 6,000 MAYDAY audio files and many videos, as well. This group is able to listen to every radio transmission on a given scene and analyze that traffic from before the emergency was declared, replies to the firefighter(s) and the transmissions subsequent to the emergency being mitigated. As we discussed this very important topic, I learned that still have a lot to learn about our tactics, how we treat radio traffic from our radios when we are in the midst of our assigned tasks and how we respond when
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Build Your Culture - Professionalism v. Minimalism!
17/12/2019 Duración: 02h05minPHOTO CREDIT TO Battalion Chief (ret) Keith Helms)As firefighters we constantly face challenges, however not all of them are at an emergency scene. Many of these challenges occur every day; often before we ever leave the station. And many of those challenges deal with our attitudes. You might be surprised at the toll that a wrong attitude can have.My guests for this episode of “5-Alarm Task Force,” are Sean Duffy and Pablo Gener, of the “Build Your Culture,” training group. As with most choices we face in life, there is a “right way” and, let’s just call it “another way,” of doing things. However, as firefighters, we are held to a high standard for everything we do. And Sean and Pablo believe that, no matter if you’re a career, volunteer, wildland or paid-on-call firefighter, you should always be on your “A-game,” because in this business, anything less, could result in dire circumstances. My guests pose the question, “If you truly want to build your firefighting culture, do you do so with professionalism or
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The Importance of the 360 Size-Up + More!
11/12/2019 Duración: 02h35minAs long as we have had two-way radios in the fire service, the first arriving officer (or whomever was in a “right seat”) would provide some sort of report upon arrival. In my active years in two different departments from ’77-’85, the FAO might give a 15-30 “quick view” to dispatch. I remember being assigned to “recon” a structure file, a few times and report back to the ranking officer on scene. And mind you, in those days we had two radios: one fixed in the apparatus and one for the person in the right seat. Thankfully, we’ve come a long way since then!For this special “Panel Discussion” episode of “5-alarm Task Force,” I am joined my Commissioner Jared Renshaw, Battalion Chief Andy Starnes, Captain Andrew Roach and Lt. Jason Liska; four, seasoned and well-experienced officers. Together, we discuss the critical importance of the good report; preferably one derived from a 360. We concede that there will be occasions where a quick, “windshield” size-up will be expedient to expedite an initial ops plan; howev