I am not confident about my abilities wearing an SCBA. I feel I use my air too quickly. I go from a full tank to the bell going off in 15:33 while climbing stairs at a moderate pace. I want to improve. If you have any suggestions let me hear them. I am fairly new to fire service.

Has anyone not from Florida used Ricky Rescue website to take their Fire Officer 1 course? I live in a state where Fire Officer is not a separate certification, but you need a certificate from an officer 1 course as a prerequisite for some other courses, like Safety Officer, certain command classes, etc. Thanks in advance.

My first assignment was on an engine with a truck and medic unit.
The Captain was old-school. The Engineer; so lazy the other shifts would tape a $5 bill on the end of the dipstick, knowing he’d never check the oil. They never wanted to leave the station, and bitched about going on calls.

I showed up wide-eyed, eager, ready to learn. By my third shift, I realized I was on my own. The truck crew hated these guys so much they’d leave the station just to avoid them.

So I trained myself. Pulled hose in the app room, bedded it myself. Ladders, SCBA drills, reps on everything. Six months later, I came out #1 on my test, and those two knuckleheads tried to take credit for it.

But here’s the thing: the best lesson I got came from that same Captain during my evaluation. He told me:
“Pick your role models carefully, because that’s who you’ll end up like.”

Ahead of his time. Today people say you’re the sum of the five people you spend the most time with. Same truth.

Parting wisdom:

• You can survive a bad assignment with the right mindset.
• People will always try to take credit for what they don't deserve.

• Sometimes the best lessons come from the worst places.

  Did you work for one of these guys, or did you learn an unexpected lesson?

I am a 23f who got her Emt license in 2021. Worked for a fire department that did 48/96, and also worked as an ER Tech in a level 1. I struggled a lot while working for the fire department. Not sleeping, the male dominated comradery (they weren’t the warmest/ most welcoming bunch to a 20 year old girl.) The more intense calls were difficult for me to process, I’m naturally sensitive and empathetic. I’d also like to add that I was in the room when my mom was getting coded and then died when I was 11, so the triggers were real. I didn’t like being the bitch, especially doing things for grown men (ie coffee making, waxing the engine, etc) it didn’t sit right with me. However my dream from a young young age was to be a firefighter. I am extremely fit and determined. I’ve ran marathons, have a lot of muscle mass and low body fat, and am hungry as fuck for meaning and a good ass challenge. I’d also like to add for context that ems came easily to me. I loved learning it and I developed a real passion for the work. I was often told by peers that I did well and stayed extremely collected during chaos. I stopped working for the FD because it was so hard on me mentally. Those 48s would often turn into 72s, no sleep. Rough. I then worked in the ER and I learned so much and overall enjoyed it, but was still unsure if emergency med was for me given my sensitive nature and the trigger response from my nervous system given what I saw with my own mom/ life. Time has passed and I’ve been doing service industry things and finishing a psych degree to have in my back pocket and a long term plan of being a therapist. However, I still have a fire and a hunger to finish what I started and become a FF/PM. It’s something that constantly eats at me. The bad assery, the commitment to service, the purpose and meaning the job provides. It calls me but I already have some proof that it goes against my personality? I need yalls opinions. Ty.

Last night on a drill with the crew I was completely gassed. I know I am out of shape, but last night it hit really hard. Not really sure of the point of this post yet, more of a self rant/vent I guess. There are two parts to this situation I realized, as I lay awake last night stressing balls. I'm out of shape and out of touch with the crew. I am a Captain with a small rural VFD.

The out of shape part.

My day job is a work from home desk job (part of the problem), sedintary job, sitting job thats bad for backs. Stay up to late either working or TV, as I have noticed that is some form of control I have over my day with a chaotic life with kids. Don't drink, but eating is a crutch that fills a void. I get back into powerlifting and firehall style workouts, but then hurt my back again, which makes a full stop. I am realizing it took me a long time to get to this point physically, so its going to be a long road to change, so baby steps are needed. My baby steps are; go to bed early, cut out processed foods/eat low carb/no food after dinner, do something physical daily be it walking to splitting wood for now, work on getting my back strong.

The out of touch part.

I've lost some connection with the crew and with the skills. I get mired in planning, paperwork, implimenting training, admin/safety planning, or being in command of a training scenario. My plan to help with this is two fold, be more mindful with my time, and start actively turning down every ask to be in command of training, and structuring the training calendar so either the Chief officers are in command of scenarios, or senior non officers are. Second, its a new budget year soon so I will be pushing to up my monthly pay to be comparable to a days pay a week at my day job. The hope here is I can go to 4 days at work, and 1 day at fire, to actaully have a chunk of dedicated time, thats not practice nights, to get everything else done.

What I do know is; I love my crew and my department, the fact that we get to do this awesome thing in the community, I don't want to fall short for my crew or the public, and I don't want to put my home family or fire family through what becoming a statistic would mean. I have a milestone birthday coming, and could be part of the sucession planning future of the department, so long story short, its time to get my shit together.

In the end, the purpose for this was self therapy, to talk it out further with myself, so if you read it, thank you for your time, and have a great day today, and enjoy the last week of summer.

Any fellas in here dealt with a herniated disk, specifically at or around the L4/L5 area? Pain started Saturday morning 8/23 when I woke up at the station before shift change and progressively got worse throughout the day to the point I couldn’t sit, stand or lay and could barely walk. Decided to go to a small urgent care/ER that night and had an xray done which showed nothing, they gave me a steroid injection and muscle relaxer injection and prescribed me Methylprednisolone and Orphenadrine. No relief whatsoever from the injections or the meds. Woke up the next day (Sunday), same amount of pain and symptoms. Went to a chiropractor that afternoon, did some twists and pops and told me to up my water intake and keep icing it. No relief. Monday (8/25) I decide to go to an actual ER for CT scan or MRI just to at least get some answers. Did the CT scan which showed the herniated disk. Gave me a dose of Vicodin and a lidocaine patch which didn’t touch the pain. Physical therapist came into the room afterwards and did some stuff, actually felt a bit better after that. Getting up from sitting or laying still hurt but walking was actually less painful. Hospital switched me from methylprednisolone to prednisone and continue taking orphenadrine, but neither seem to help.

Fast forward to today, pain comes and goes but when it comes it’s rough. I start physical therapy this afternoon and hoping for some progress from that. But just posting to see if anyone here as some insight or advice on what worked for them. Just looking for some light at the end of the tunnel.

P.S. take care of your backs.

What has your experience been in either department? All I keep hearing is guys complain about how EMS departments are dreadful and miserable but get paid more. When, in my area I hear that the big City (fire only) gets paid the most and has the best benefits. Have I been lied to this whole time? Are there ANY benefits to EMS departments?

The title pretty much says is. Just got voted in yesterday. Im physically fit. Eager to learn but don't want to waste peoples time trying to learn or be good at the wrong things. Would appreciate some advice so I can start off on a good foot.

Hey all, I left a serious boyfriend last year because he was avoidant and treating me poorly. He's a FT fire fighter AEMT and volunteer fire chief (rural New England). I just found out his new girlfriend helped him get into a 45 day IAFF COE program for substance use and mental health, which is awesome. I'm wondering what the long term outcomes are for this program. When we were together I helped arrange a crisis intervention for him. It got him the help he needed at the time but he clearly needed a higher level of care less than a year later. I miss him so much but in more concerned about his safety and well-being. I am just curious about the program and what it's done for people who have gone through it. I hope that he suffers less because of this program regardless of whether we are together or not. Thank you so much!

Feel free to get as technical or non-technical as you'd like here. We currently use two-tone radio alerting and I'm trying to see what's out there, what's better, what's worse. Considering systems that dispatch over IP, but radio signals are far more reliable than networking signals. Maybe over IP with radio as a backup is better?

When we get a run, dispatch transmits one set of two tones for each firehouse over the radio. Each firehouse is constantly listening for its unique set of two tones. When the system in the firehouse hears its tones, it triggers an alert tone over the firehouse speakers and opens them up to play radio traffic. Our firehouse radios have two settings, day and night. Day has the speakers always open; night has all radio traffic silenced until the system hears that particular firehouse's two tones, at which point it opens up the speakers for the crew to hear the dispatcher's message.

In addition to the dispatcher's message, we have rip and runs printing in the firehouses. Just switched to a new CAD and the rip and runs are pretty bad with the new system. We're in the midst of upgrading the RMS system on our rig tablets to get better building and dispatch info for the runs we respond to.

Not looking to change for the sake of change, just want to see if we can improve the information sharing. Our current system isn't terrible, but its been a while since we've had major updates.

Are there any out there??

15 years in, company officer at a suburb dept of 4 stations, 100ish people, 48/96. We average 4-5 in a 24 hr period, sometimes 1-2, sometimes 12-16.

It’s not all that uncommon for us to get to sleep through the night. However, in the last year or 2, I simply cannot sleep through the night. Even without calls, I’m getting up 2-3 times. Usually it’s a toss and turn, occasionally I’ll get up to go to bathroom but that’s not the reason.

When I’m at home, my head hits the pillow and unless something wakes me up, I sleep like a baby.

Anyone experience this? Got any tips?

Hello, I am looking for mounting hardware for the force 4xl. I recently bought this bar to go on my personal truck (Ohio Vol. Firefighter) and didn't realize it didn't come with mounts. It has 4 bolts on the bottom (Two on each side) but no brackets. Wasn't sure if there was specific ones or if i could just get some off of amazon (Basic mounts like is what is used on my current lightweight strobe light bar), clearly I know I cant use magnet mounts due to the weight of the bar, but didn't know if i could just use the brackets for the magnet mounts and take the mags off and hard bolt it to my roof?

If there is mounts for it and if anyone can hook me up please let me know.

Or if the basic mounts from amazon would work.

The picture is stretched so might have to full view it to see the whole thing, not sure to much how this site works yet lol.

Some of the squad leads and team leads don’t know wtf they’re doing my squad lead specifically gets mad at me for asking questions or asking if things need to be set up even though I know they do but gets mad if I set them up without him telling me to do it. He’s not a good representation of a leader IE not knowing where things go not knowing how rotations work and sometimes when he doesn’t know the answer he tells me to ask an instructor or the class lead which would get everyone in trouble if we break the chain of command. He also delegates our squad to do the more labor intensive tasks while he does the least labor intensive task

Regardless of the rant does station life and firefighting get better once your hired with the people you work with or is there always gonna be that one guy.

I’ve noticed that a lot of fire departments, including my own, hold training on Tuesdays at 19:00. Obviously not every hall follows this schedule, but it seems like a pretty common trend. Does anyone know the history or reasoning behind Tuesday evenings being the ‘standard’ practice night, or how that tradition got started.

This might be a stupid question and I apologize if it is, just one of my weekly shower thoughts I suppose.

I want to pack my fiancée lunch for his first ride, would he have enough time to unpack and eat his food? Or is it depending on the calls?

Im not going to give too much info since who knows who's reading this and can track it back to me. I saw info on the changes to our contract, and to say my jaw dropped is an understatement. I can't for the life of me understand how the city can think its okay to try and count chiefs toward maning and use a nearby jurisdiction's 2 man apparatus as emergency staffing.

I get it. We work alot of ot, but another officer in a pickup doesn't help us on a fire scene in the same way as a 3rd or 4th on an engine.

Well survive we are cowboy company and have made small staffs work so far but the city is gaining population not losing people.

Also, shame on the old men running the union prioritizing the dollar bills paid over obvious nfpa safety concerns. I guess the city will wait til people die and they get sued to make changes.

It’s painful to say this out loud, but I’m steadily losing faith in the fire service here at home. A system that once stood for pride, service, and strength has slowly become a shadow of what it used to be, and what it should be.

We are watching a profession built on grit, honor, and sacrifice fall behind the times. Where innovation should be driving progress, we instead see outdated systems, resistant leadership, and a shocking unwillingness to evolve. New challenges arise daily, but the same tired solutions are pushed by those unwilling or unable to lead effectively.

Promotions are handed out based on politics and popularity rather than merit, experience, or vision. Incompetent leadership has become normalized, and those who truly care about the future of the fire service are sidelined. Meanwhile, firefighter morale is quietly deteriorating behind firehouse doors.

Towns that once stood behind us with pride now treat us as an afterthought — cutting budgets, ignoring warnings, and expecting more with less. Every department now is responding to fewer actual emergencies, yet our responsibilities keep expanding. Medicals, lift assists, alarms. We’re being stretched thin in all the wrong places while our training, equipment, and support fall further behind.

Volunteer departments are struggling to put trucks on the road. Calls go unanswered because the help just isn’t there. Career departments are handcuffed by internal politics, bureaucracy, and decision-makers who haven’t seen the inside of a truck in decades.

Worse still, the applicant pool is shrinking. Fewer people want to do this job — not because it’s hard, but because the passion that once lit this career path has been dimmed by dysfunction, burnout, and a system that no longer values its people the way it should. It’s heartbreaking. It’s frustrating. And it’s dangerous.

This isn't about nostalgia. It's not about the “good old days.” It’s about survival. It’s about the future of the fire service and whether or not we’re brave enough to fix what’s broken before it breaks completely.

To those still fighting the good fight: you're not alone. And to those in leadership: it’s time to wake up. Reform isn't optional anymore, it’s overdue.

For those of you who went through the online course “training division” to get your certs, do yall feel like you came out the other side with all of the knowledge and tools you needed?

I got the brunt ohman all black. Love them and I also have the under armour valsetz zip.

I’m 22 and had a question regarding what kind of test will be done to check for alcohol consumption for my fire department. I don’t drink often but last night I got plastered for a buddy’s birthday. I was wondering if it will just be a simple BAC test or a urine test or what. Looking online the urine test can detect it for up to 80 hours or more after heavy drinking. I know that I’m going in for a physical and urinalysis and that’s it. I was never told to not use mouthwash with alcohol the day of or whatever.

Just wondering what the locals are a part of, do they get representation from both?

I just finished my newest Lego creation: A 1/15 scale full RC Pierce Arrow XT Engine from the LAFD.

See comments for pictures :)

Specs include:

• remote controlled drive, steering, pump and deck gun
• one inlet (suction), one outlet (switchable instead of deck gun)
• 0.5 gpm pump
• electronic siren (wail, yelp, hi-lo), Q, Air horn
• accurate emergency and scene lighting
• 15 feet of hose (transverse and rear hose bed)
• chrome parts up the butt and custom decals