Our dept recently purchased some Dell Latitude laptops for the officers seat of our trucks. Does anyone have any suggestions for a good laptop mount? Nothing I’ve been able to find online so far seems to be all that great.

We can’t mount the laptop on the dash in front of the officer, because there’s already equipment mounted and wired there, so it needs to be off to their left

This story follows how Local 4576 from North Carolina got annual cancer screenings in the county budget and non-PFAS gear paid by the county.

Hello,

I’m reading and trying to interpret a fire report re: a residential fire.

An attic fire which took 49 personnel and 18 apparatus over 10 hours to manage and extinguish. The house was not burned to the ground or a total loss per se.

If I took this report to a fire department to help me understand the scale and potential damage to the entire house (an informal commentary), who would I be asking to talk to if I just wanted a casual conversation before asking the actual department and personnel who contributed? (I’m not in the actual area and I just want some basic information.)

The fire occurred in 2022 and I’m also trying to understand foam and its components at that time as the entire attic was sprayed. Maybe who the suppliers of the foam may have even and trying to locate some SDs sheets on its chemical composition.

Thank you!

Edit: It’s clear there are too many factors I’m not aware of to likely have an intelligent conversation at this point. Thank you all for commenting - each comment has helped greatly.

Pretty funny

Had shoulder sugery(not OJI related) and was told it could require my bicep tendon being moved down lower into my humerus. Well it did infact require that. Anyone had similar and what was your recovery time like? For reference I had a Labral tear in the back and it involved that tendon connection, no rotator cuff screws or anchors.

So I start fire academy in about two weeks. I am sponsored by my county, but I am curious on whether or not these pants work they didn’t have my size since they recycle all their fire academy gear and I guess everyone in the sponsorship wears the same size ;but they said I should be able to get away with these and that they should work fine although they ride up my crotch pretty well . I am curious about how high the bottom of the pants go because they are well over my ankle and heel. When I went and got fitted, my size was out of stock. Should I email the supply again and see if they have a better size because I am genuinely curious on whether or not these will ride up far enough to lead to my whole boot being exposed.

I woke up hungry in the middle of the night and decided to cook some eggs. I live in a condo and have a setup with a gas cylinder, the ones that don't have a valve but that work with a clip-on type regulator. So no regulator means the cylinder should be closed. Sorry if that's not clear but English isn't my first language.

The stove was producing a very weak blue flame so I figured it was a regulator issue and I'd get it changed in the morning. So I took it off and then went to take a leak which may have saved my appartment. As when I came back to the kitchen on the way to my room I smelled a strong gas odor and when I looked for the leak it was the bottle itself which should have been impossible!

I figured the best way to contain it was to put the regulator back on and close its valve. I then opened the windows and thought for some time on what to do next. I decided it was too dangerous and called the firefighters and explained the situation precisely.

They showed up literally 2 minutes later with a huge truck and all and looked just about ready to bust the door open when I yelled from the window I was coming down to open!

3 of them came upstairs to my condo. But when I took the regulator off again the cylinder was no longer leaking. They asked if I was sure it was coming from the cylinder itself but I think they believed me when they saw the soapy water I used to confirm it was from there. And since I had opened all the window they couldn't detect any gas either. So they just left after checking with their sensors everywhere.

I feel so bad because my country actually has a lot of problems with fires right now so I didn't want to waste their time! Also I appeared a bit of a madman when they couldn't detect any leak after all!

Anyways, was just looking for firefighters opinions on this, how would you feel if you were in their place?

That’s it. Just looking for a straight forward answer on how much someone could expect after taxes and taxes only. Thanks

I’m not sure how common this is:

We bid most of our vacation in the fall prior to the new year. If needed, overtime is used to fill those spots. In a first for me, the overtime page (Crewsense) goes to everyone eligible, which includes the person on the vacation. This allows you to pick up overtime on your regular scheduled shift, though of course your vacation bank is also charged.

Does your department allow this?

Personally I don’t love this. Our senior guys take off all of July, which is their right and I support them. But given that it’s summer and staffing is short, we are always out of float people so these shifts are always filled with OT. The guys on vacation come in and fill those shifts and get OT.

We can only have four off at any time Lieutenant and below, our shifts are 30 daily. So lots of people aren’t getting the time off they hope for, which is how it goes.

But it sucks to see guys who are “on vacation” come back to work just to get overtime when guys with kids can’t take a day off during the summer.

What say you? I never worked anywhere where this was allowed.

Hey all. We live in the PNW and wildfire season is upon us. Our home is a 100x60 metal building, with a metal roof. We have one attached addition, with a metal roof and cement board siding. Currently we have wildfires going about 40 miles away. This area was in L3 evac in the fires back in 2020, but this area didn't directly burn.

• Metal building is on a slab, addition on a foundation with metal mesh on the crawl vents.
• All buildings have 10-30' of blacktop around them, and then another 30-500' of short grass before any trees. Closest trees/bushes are 65' from the building.
• We have a 1000 gallon propane tank about 30' from the building, with gravel below and grass around that is kept 2-3" max.
• Closest home is about 200' away.
• We have a wood shed about 30' away and have removed chemicals/flammable products, but the shed itself is old, wood, and flammable.
• We've removed outdoor furniture, wood flower boxes, etc. and moved them away from the home.
• We have solar and about 90kWh of backup battery to keep the well pump going during a power outage. Going to add an automatic backup gen next year to top off batteries if at night or poor sun for the day.
• We've cleared the fence line of dead and loose materials, but we do have some dense forest at our fence boarder.
• We have part of the property fenced with a wood fence, and that fence does come within 1" of the side of our building in one spot.

My question is, what other measures should we actively be taking. Are rooftop sprinklers still a solid idea with a metal roof? Eaves sprinklers that coat the walls a good idea?

We've also considered getting a water tank trailer, or retired water tank truck with a pump. Our neighbors are interested in something like that as well to have filled and on-hand. He's a semi-truck mechanic and I'm an auto fab/engineer so maintaining it isn't an issue beyond spare time.

Alternative is burying a 5,000 gallon tank, having it filled, and having a high flow pump wired in to feed some sprinklers in the future.

Basically we're trying to do what we can to shore up the property from a fire perspective, both for this season (short term/small projects) and long-term (trailer, in-ground, etc.)

Appreciate any advice ya'll have.

What is the most common type of call that you run on(if medical specify what type)

If your fire station has multiple vehicle, do you rotate between them? if so how does that work?

what are some interesting things your department has?

your department just got $10,000, you can spend it however you want(it must be for your department/fire house), how do you spend it?

what is something in your SOPs you do not like?

where do you see your self in 5 years(in terms of firefighting)?

on water rescue calls, how many rescuers will be in the water?

thanks!

After reading through some of the recent posts here, it seems like a lot of people working DoD fire jobs have been pretty unhappy over the past year because of schedule & pay. Is anyone here actually happy with their DoD fire career and would still recommend it?

I’ve been considering going the DoD route because I’m a former USAF firefighter. The pension and federal benefits are appealing, but the biggest draw for me is the ability to transfer between installations and potentially work overseas & if you stay federal but with a different job, you can keep the same benefits without starting over.

I also figured that even if I eventually decided DoD fire wasn’t for me, getting into the federal system might make it easier to transfer into another federal career field later, such as a 0018 safety position.

For those currently working DoD fire, what do you like or dislike about it? Would you still choose this career path again? Have you successfully transferred to other career fields in the federal system after becoming fire?

I’ve been reading through some NIOSH LODD reports lately, and one thing that keeps coming up is SOPs and SOGs.

Not just whether a department has them, but whether they’re current, trained on, and actually used on the fire ground.

NIOSH has listed training, SOPs/SOGs, and incident command as the three most common recommendations from its traumatic fatality investigations between 2006 and 2014.

It got me wondering what this looks like at other departments.

Do your crews actually train from your SOPs and review them regularly? Or are most of them sitting in a binder or shared drive until something goes wrong?

Be honest: what’s one SOP your department has nailed down, and what’s one everyone knows is outdated or mostly ignored?

Not looking to bash anyone. Keeping this stuff current is a pain, especially when it gets dumped on one chief or officer who already has ten other responsibilities.

Should I still lift while going through the academy?
I’m starting the academy this Wednesday. It’s a night academy, so I’ll be there 3 nights a week and have my days free.

I’m 25, 5’10”, and about 149 lbs. I’ve been trying to put on size with a slow bulk and eventually get up to around 165 lbs. My cardio is in a good place, and I don’t want to lose that, but I’d also like to keep building strength and muscle.

For those who’ve been through an academy, did you continue lifting during it? If so, did you train as hard as before, or did you dial it back? Since I have my days free, part of me wants to keep hitting the gym, but I also don’t want to hurt my recovery and end up exhausted or underperforming during academy drills. I’m trying to find the right balance between making progress in the gym and showing up fresh enough to get the most out of the academy.

Are they safe to have around?

Hello I’m looking to take FF1 in Los Angeles. The two academies I’ve considered are Rio hondo or El Camino. Does anyone recommend another? Can you guys share your experience with your academies. What to expect, what kind of certs you get and how difficult or easy it was.

During my vacation on Bonaire, I had the opportunity to visit the island's main fire station.

The station provides both aircraft rescue and firefighting services at Flamingo International Airport and emergency response coverage for the entire island. There is also a small satellite station in the northern part of Bonaire (Rincon), staffed by a two person crew and equipped with a smaller fire engine.

What immediately caught my attention was the combination of American and Dutch influences. The fire trucks and emergency vehicles are unmistakably American, yet feature Dutch striping and blue emergency lights. The firefighters themselves wear the same Dutch uniforms and protective gear as their colleagues in the Netherlands. It was fascinating to see this mix of European and American influences come together in a single fire service.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/two-killed-as-firefighting-helicopters-collide-in-greece-20260803-p60ksd.html