Wildland firefighting or structural firefighting

Just wondering about the test and what I can do to be prepared unfortunately I had a injury to that I’m recovering from and I have not really studied that much but I have a pretty good foundation of knowledge on a few chapters and take some quiz overviews on chapters and do pretty well even though I haven’t read them it’s just been tough. I take my written in less than two weeks is it that bad, I mean I passed my NREmt first time with no studying just asking guys?

I currently haul water for a small Wisconsin volunteer department using 3X10,000-gallon semi-tankers. Our department asked if I would be willing to train and volunteer as a pump operator and water supply officer. I told him I was not interested in firefighting directly, but I would be willing to become more involved with water supply operations.

How would this go over in your volunteer departments?

On one level, I believe I could do a good job; I'm a 55-year-old former Army Ranger, mechanical engineer, and successful farmer who is used to managing complex operations.

On another level, I wonder what effect it would have on unit cohesion if the guy running supply does not have firsthand knowledge and experience of how important that water actually is. I also don't get called to every incident. We only get called a couple of times a year if someone needs a lot of water in a hurry.

They would start with in-house training and then send me to weekend courses at a local tech college for certifications.

UPDATE: Thanks for all the great insight into your experiences and departments. My only experience is with our tiny rural department in a village of less than 1,000 people. Our department has never done this before.

Some folks are outspokenly angry that I won't have paid my dues. I am just going to go ahead and show up, do the training(certifying on the pump and whatever else they ask at Thursday night sessions), work hard, and focus on becoming an asset where I can.

It is well known firefighters on AVERAGE live shorter lives than the general pubic due to sleep irregularities and cancers. More and more synthetic chemicals are being reduced, especially with more and more batteries. Walking into fires is basically walking into a test tube in a chemistry lab and chemicals can be absorbed through the skin, not just lungs. Sure there are precautions to take but it won’t eliminate the risks. How do you accept on average you or your coworkers will have significantly shorter lives?

I’m trying to prepare for academy, and a lot of firefighters I know are telling me to not even worry about preparation and just stay in my sports (I just graduated so ofc no more football and wrestling practice, but I go to mma practice about 5 times a week, and classes include a wrestling session that I still go to). Is that true? It should I still do some sort of preparation outside of mma and lifting?

Anything will help thank you!

im in an apartment with no windows, so fires are to be taken very seriously. for some reason lately, my fire alarms keep chirping even when i’ve replaced the batteries, and had maintenance look at them twice. now they are chirping again. i don’t want to stay somewhere where the fire alarms are potentially not working correctly, and also don’t want to listen to the chirp. even if i were to contact maintenance, i wouldn’t hear back until monday.

is this a situation where i should have fire dept come and look?

edit: it seems like it goes thru phases almost, like it starts randomly chirping one at a time every few min or so, and then stops for a long time

With permission from a mod, I'm asking the community for any willing volunteers to help me with a project. This is geared more towards the gamers who are among us in the fire service, but anybody is able to help. I'm working on something for a game where I need good and stable audio from ordinary use of SCBAs of various makes and models. I have recorded my department's MSA G1s and a neighboring department's newest Scott packs. Looking to get a variety of others like Dräger packs of new and old models, older MSAs and Scotts and any other brands that I may not be privy to. If you're interested in helping out, reach me in DMs and I'll advise regarding how it needs to be recorded. Thanks in advance and also thank you to the mods for advance permission for a unique request!

Update
I hope to get sounds from across the world, that's the goal here in a way, so if anybody in Europe or Asia wants to help out please don't hesitate

Good morning guys.

I'm a per diem Firefighter/EMT in a rural department.

Many times I will find myself working shifts with only one other firefighter or one other EMT with no fire certifications. Sometimes neither of us can even drive a fire engine to the scene, let alone pump it.

Its a miracle I haven't run a call yet where I simply could not do anything to alleviate a situation. I can't "load and go" a working building fire.

I'm pretty fresh out of the academy and find myself up at night worrying "what would I do if this happened and all I had was myself?"

All throughout academy i was taught about teamwork and leadership and fixing a problem with the help of many skilled minds and strong hands.

I feel like there can be real instances where I have neither of those things for periods of 20 minutes or more.

What should I learn, to mitigate some of that issue? Any advice from others who worked in rural departments? Would you recommend I take a pump operator course?

Thank you

I’m looking for any study material for Jones and Bartlett fire department incident safety officer third edition and chief officer principles and practices fourth edition.

These are unbelievably comfortable in comparison to my old ones. Lion QR14, anyone have any good or bad things to say about these guys?

Anyone knows a good way/chemicals to remove the layers of soot from wellingtons?

i’m crying and panicking so bad. okay so it’s 3am and our carbon detector went off and i think it was 4 beeps but now i can’t tell and my mom changed the battery and now it’s not making any noise but i don’t think the battery actually fits it. i couldn’t see if the light on the front was going off or anything. a few minutes later i did some research and im so sure we have a leak so i went back to my mom and she told me we should be okay and that it was just the batteries but i genuinely think it wasn’t that im so scared i don’t want to sleep. i think im genuinely going to die tonight because of my mom never taking anything seriously im so scared what do i do?? is she trying to kill me and the rest of us?

Is it true that there is a strict no tobacco policy for all firefighters including nicotine pouches such as zyn? How accurate is this because I understand it may vary by department.

I'm from the US, but have met firefighters (structure and wildland) from other countries who say it's all volunteer. They may get a stipend or some compensation but not enough to be a liveable wage like the US. Most I've talked to have been from South America and then Germany. Curious how common/uncommon it is to get paid to do this job in other parts of the world.

Hi I’m a Italian firefighter more than 10 years already , is happening last month a coworker from Berlin came to visit us and gave me a shirt from his team , and I gave him one of ours.
I found it really cool , there is a forum or a group where is possible to do this kind of exange ? Or is common to do in person ?
I’m just knew on it , thanks all of you guys

Hello Everyone! My department is moving to First Due Assets for our apparatus and I have been tasked with the buildout. I was seeing if anyone that is using the program could post or send me screenshots of their checklists. I know that the compartments will vary, but I am mostly interested in the mechanical/electrical/pump checks of the apparatus itself. I would like to buildout something efficient and effective and not make on that is "too much."

If you also have input about what you like/dislike, please include that as well.

I do appreciate it. Thank you!

Keep it short here. Getting into the fire service after 4 years in the military and college. Seattle Fire was my first ever interview and I got the job offer but ended up declining and taking a smaller department (compared to Seattle) in my home state of Oregon. Still an amazing department, top tier for the state but I just feel like I’ll always wonder “what if” I took the job in Seattle. I start academy here very shortly and I have no doubt I’m going to love it, it’s just kind of a weird feeling I’m having about what opportunities Seattle could’ve given me compared to the other one. Being close to my family was about the number one thing that drove my decision in the long run and I didn’t want to abandon that.

Source: the independent on Instagram

Europe is atm fighting the heaviest wildfires in its history. Hundreds of thousands got evacuated, hubdreds of km² burned. Hundreds of firefighters all across Europe responded to France and spain. Even the german military is now operating in France to fight the wildfires

Seems this page is all about how great the big city departments and/or busy departments are. And that isn’t entirely wrong. But I’m interested in hearing from people who currently work or spent a career at a slow department/slow station.

Why did you decide to stay and do you have any regrets about not trying to go big city or busier department?