One of life’s greatest needs is balance. Without it, we stumble, we fall, we fail in many endeavors. We cannot function, we will let others down, and in the end, we will hurt ourselves. Physically speaking, balance is what allows us to stand up-right; to walk, run, climb ladders, search buildings and find our way out. It is our equilibrium and when it isn’t working, we suffer greatly. Anyone who has experienced vertigo or even motion sickness can relate. Lacking balance is more than just being clumsy, it can be down right miserable.
But what about the balance of life? I’m referring to the balancing act everyone of us performs daily. We juggle families, work, happiness, stress, etc. When we loose balance in our lives, bad things can, and often do, happen. The consequences vary from just having a “nothing went right” sorta day, to loosing the things most important to us.
Balance is something I start coaching and teaching from day one with my new people. Balance is not easy. For a new, aspiring fire fighter, especially in the volunteer service, balance can be near impossible to maintain.  I don’t mean to single out volunteers or say that balance isn’t an issue with the career service because it is, just in a different way. Volunteers are in a unique situation; giving as much time as they can to an organization that often times is willing to take as much as what is given, all the while maintaining a “pay the bills” job(s). Put that way, it’s easy to see where burn-out comes from.
As senior fire fighters and officers, we have to teach and set the example to newer members; balance means maintaining focus on family needs and putting the “at home” family before the fire family. It’s OK to miss a call because you’re reading to your kids at night. You should skip training to attend your brother’s graduation. One of my most important jobs is to force and teach balance; force it by sending the fire fighter home from training when he or she shows up a little under the weather; teach it by providing good examples and giving praise for “family first” attitudes.
It is too easy to loose the balance between our two families; fire and family. Everyone reading this that has a family knows what I’m talking about. Everyone of us has had to validate the missing of a family event. I’m not saying that we should never run out on our family to respond to an emergency. I am saying we need to use our experience and maturity (and dare I say Common Sense) to form a decision: go or no-go. I have found including my spouse in the decision process helps. I try to discuss “what-if’s” before an event so then I know her view point and can take it into consideration. It’s basically a form of risk-management: the more variables and information I know, the better decision I’ll be likely to make.
I spent the first five or more years of my marriage fighting for balance (Yeah, the learning curve thing…). I was giving way too much to the organization, putting fire first more times than not. Think about that: the most important things in my life, my wife and children, and I was regularly putting them down the list, under fire fighting. I even had a retiring fire fighter pull me aside and tell me that what he saw wasn’t good: he had lost a family doing the same things I was doing. Did I listen? Not at first… but eventually I did.
I started looking at other areas of my life that weren’t as I wanted them. Slowly, the pieces started to fit together: I was dizzy, unbalanced, clumsy. I was full throttle in fire fighting, but my work wasn’t up to par and I was constantly behind. My family life was stressed.
I began to back down from the fire service, slowly weaning myself. Once I did this, other things in my life started to fall back into place. I was regaining my balance.




Today, life is good. Balance is not automatic and I find myself having to “re-calibrate” so to speak, but now I recognize when the scales start to tip one way or another. I have found ways to push the scale back to balance when they tip. And, it’s OK to take a break from fire fighting once in a while. Even this blog can cause the scales to tip in an un-wanted direction. As with most things in life, moderation is the key. Anytime we do things to an extreme, we risk tipping the scales, and when the scales tip, sometimes when we get them back, something very important is missing.

It just sits there. I know what it’s for. I know I should be using it more.
I bought it from a friend for cheap. He didn’t use it any more than I did. Probably less. We both need it.
When I first saw it sitting in his garage, a layer of dust accumulating on it, I queried him as to the price for his, “deluxe, over-sized belt sander”.

His perplexed look told me he didn’t quite understand my question. He was moving overseas and I had just bartered a band-saw away from him and he figured I was looking for more shop toys. “I know you never run on that thing, so I figured it must be a giant belt sander” I said as I motioned toward the treadmill in the corner of his garage. He let it go for a price I couldn’t pass up. My wife wasn’t quite as thrilled when I arrived home with it…

Now you have to understand something: I HATE to run. Running for me is torturous. I find it extremely boring and painful. I will, and often do, utilize any and all excuses not to run. The treadmill, though, is a bit different. I can do it at home, in any weather, while watching TV, reading a magazine, etc. No vests, no traffic, no rain/snow… I can do this!

As I age I find keeping up with the “kids” in the department ever more difficult. I don’t want to be the “old guy” that has to leave early when his bottle is sucked dry. I want to be the guy they see as the benchmark. So I run. Not far, definitely not fast, but I do run (OK, jog). Besides, teaching an air management class and being the first to empty an SCBA bottle certainly does not add to one’s credibility.
Plus there is that longevity thing; wanting to be around longer for my family. Face it; there is an elephant in the corner of almost every firehouse, especially volunteer houses: physical fitness. I recently wrote a paper on the need for live fire training in acquired structures and during the research found that neither the live fire training nor the acquired structures are really all that dangerous. As is the case in nearly all aspects of the fire service, the statistics show that cardiac events are killing the majority of us. No surprise, but a fact easily and often overlooked, or in the case of many volunteer organizations, ignored because the administration legally cannot or ignorantly will not address it. Easy solution: each of us steps up to the plate and takes personal responsibility. Do it for each other, for the service, and most importantly, for our families.
So, as I meander back onto my treadmill every other day or so, I will know that I am helping set a good example; I am looking the elephant in the eye.
It doesn’t take much: using the push mower rather than the rider, raking leaves instead of using the blower, walking or biking to work, walking during a lunch break or better yet, taking a walk with your family after work. Get up, get out, and move. Oh, and turn off the computer and stop reading this garbage!

For more info on firefighter fitness and some great motivational reading, check out The Fire Service Warrior blog.

OK, so it’s been a bit busy around here… Between a wife, two kids, two dogs, a cat, an ever varying number of fish, a 40+ an hour per week job (plus on-call), kids’ sports, chores at home, fire command duty, teaching recruit academy, fire/EMS responses… WOW! Just typing all this makes me tire… but really, I’m bragging! I love it! It’s sometimes hard to believe I did all this and more at one time. Anyhow, the biggest reason for not posting more frequently: TIME. I don’t seem to ever have much, and any extra I do find goes to my family (as it should with all of us). I have some posts in the works, but they are still in the rough draft stage. Recruit academy is nearly complete, or at least my portion is, and then I will hopefully have a bit more time to dedicate to writing. Thanks for the support and patience; more is coming!

Sometimes, what everyone needs is a swift kick in the nuts; a reality check so to speak; a humbling of sorts to re-ground themselves and re-calibrate the moral compass. Often these are harmless, jovial kicks and others are friends kindly (or not) reminding you that you “aren’t all that”.
Ball busting is as much a fire service tradition as a washing down, perhaps even older. For as long as I have been in the company of other fire fighters, I have had my balls busted and I have busted balls.
Nearly every single “Rules for Probies” type publication I have ever seen has at some point a line referring to “being thick skinned” and not taking offense to the pranks and light harassment. The Fire Critic has even dedicate an entire section of his site to fire house practical jokes. I have always felt that jokes and pranks of this sort are a bonding tool, used to build camaraderie and a feeling of belonging. I have to admit, my intentions were not always received and I had to explain a time or two that simply put, I don’t kid around or poke fun at people I don’t like (right Cameron?). To me, ball busting is, or rather should be, a right-of-passage sort of thing, something we reserve for friends.
Even the non-humor kicking is best taken from peers. I recently had a member tell me that I am, among other things, arrogant. Ouch! Cup wasn’t setting quite right. That one hurt. He didn’t stop there, but kept on kicking until I anted up and qualified my position regarding personnel issues. In the end, his ball busting helped me realize that I had strayed from my leadership obligations; I had allowed influence from others and my own attitude issues to cloud my judgement of what I knew to be right. I was treating another fire fighter poorly and perhaps unfairly, rather than stepping up into the role of a leader and working to correct the perceived deficiencies of said fire fighter. What I needed, and certainly got, was a swift kick to the nuts to humble me; to put me in my place. Bottom line is that I don’t get to choose who I work with (especially in an all volunteer based system) so I need to find ways to make our organization work with who I have (thanks, John).
The most recent check I had was in a reply to an excuse laden email that whined about the poor quality of management I am surrounded by and how they mistreat me. I was looking for sympathy and perhaps common ground to lament over, but instead got yup, you’re right, a swift kick to the nuts. Just what the doctor ordered. Funny thing about it, I knew the answer before reading it, hell, I knew the answer before I typed the question! Sometimes we just need to hear it from someone else, preferably someone we respect or admire (thanks, UU).
Keep in mind, when your cohorts take a swing at you, they mean well. Ball busting is in some forms the fire fighter’s way of providing constructive criticism. As tough, macho fire fighters we aren’t always good at sitting down for an “intervention” type discussion; we much prefer standing around kicking your “area”. So next time you’re the one on the ground being kicked, don’t just start kicking back, but listen to what is being said. Often the best remedy after being kicked is a thorough self-examination (not literally, unless you were actually, physically kicked). My experience has proven that I always have areas that I can do better in and I either didn’t recognize them or am unwilling to admit to them until feeling some pain.
Sometimes, the cup check is just an initiation of sorts and reacting with ire is like blood in the water to sharks. Laugh with the brothers and sisters and next time you’ll be one of the ones laughing at rather than the one being laughed at.
So whether it’s humble pie, a dose of reality, or just good natured ribbing, let’s all keep this lesser recognized fire service tradition alive and well. We owe it to each other. Besides, a cup is just another piece of PPE, and how else do you check for it but to kick away!

Do you remember the TV show Emergency!? Of course any true fire buff does. I was a bit too young to catch the first run, but I did catch the last season or so and then again in syndicate. What a great show; a timeless piece of fire service Americana. No show to date has captured the essence of the fire/EMS service nor likely ever will.
What I remember of the show is not the events, or episode content, but the pure excitement that only a child can experience. Too young to know the name of the show, I simply called it, “my fire trucks”. Yells of, “Mommy, my fire trucks are on!” would echo through the house when the TV found the correct channel at the given time. I do recall, and perhaps as a premonition, of not being especially interested until the engines and trucks rolled. The squad didn’t seem to have the draw for me, and to this day, I certainly prefer fire to EMS.
For me there was always a personal connection; the town I was raised in housed our county’s Station 5. We had an Engine 51. It was, at one time, a convertible American-LaFrance, very similar looking (especially to an enamored young boy) to the LA County Engine 51 depicted in the series. Even from 3,000 miles away, I could tell they were the same, or so I thought!
Lately I have found myself watching again, via internet syndication on Hulu. For anyone that enjoys good, quality, family grade entertainment that intertwines a good deal of fire service history, I highly recommend it.
        I guess for me the importance of the show is in what I got from it. The show sparked and fuelled a passion that still burns on in me some 30+ years later (and counting). I can’t say that Emergency!  is what made me want to be a firefighter; I was raised in a volunteer firefighting family and therefore I think I just always knew that I, too, would someday get there. The show did provide me the excitement to bridge the gap until I could volunteer. Eventually the show ended, I grew older, and my interests changed. But the spark remained.
        Today as I watch (re-watch) the episodes, I am reminded of a time when a young boy, donning his rain jacket “bunker coat” and boots, would ride tailboard on his bunk bed “fire engine”, anxiously awaiting his turn to answer a call.

Mutual aid is a wonderful tool when it works. Does yours? Take a minute and really think about the last call you ran that you either gave or received mutual aid. How did it go? Hopefully, you answer something along the line of, “just like we train it.”
        The department I cut my teeth on worked mutual aid at both ends of the spectrum; really awesome to downright inexcusable. The department was highly dependent on mutual aid to safely mitigate emergencies. We gave and received equally. Now when I say mutual aid, I don’t just mean the town 5 miles over. I’m talking about being tapped out to send an engine to a neighboring town that often was more than 20 miles distance. For one town in particular, if the call was for a structure fire, the cherry was to get on the first engine out, even though it was called for “in station standby”. We knew if it was an “all hands, working fire” we would be upgraded to go to the scene. My old department also had a 100 ft truck, which made us somewhat more desirable. Either way, we seemed to work a lot of mutual aid calls.
        Not that it was always like that. Most memorable are the ones that we didn’t run on because they turned out bad. For reasons only those involved know (but I can guess), we weren’t called to some towns. One, in particular, ended up burning five multi-story commercial buildings on their main street. They refused to call us for help. A few years later (after I had moved away) a nearby city refused our ladder truck for a fire that ended up taking an entire city block. That fire had mutual aid offered mayor to mayor and was refused. Career city didn’t want help from the vollies….
        So now I find myself on the opposite coast, over a decade later and perhaps overly expectant that the fire service has overcome the personal hurdles that make mutual aid so difficult. Not so. As a matter of fact, it’s worse. The area I volunteer in rarely employs mutual aid. We have automatic aid in overlapping areas, but I feel that the agreement and execution of the plan does more harm to the relationship than it helps. Ok, there, I said it. Perhaps, the key word to making mutual aid agreements truly work: relationship.
        Does your department have a relationship with the neighboring department, or is it just an acquaintance? Look at it like this: when I walk down the street and I see someone across the street that I have a relationship with (no, not that kind!), I gladly cross the street to shake hands, say hello, and ask about their family. But if I am only acquainted with them, I may wave and in some instances, not even make eye contact.
        My current department has acquaintances with the neighboring departments. We know each other because we have to. Period. I’m talking on an organizational level, of course. Down in the trenches, we have some very solid bonds. Unfortunately, policy and SOG’s are set at the organizational level. When personal needs go unmet and relationships are suppressed by management, the effects on operational issues really have no chance of achieving resolution. In my area, of the four adjoining departments (two combination, one federal, and one volunteer), mine has isolated itself as a non-player. The other departments no longer “reach out” to us or offer joint training. They continue to train and work with each other, just not with us. More recently we find ourselves not called for mutual aid on calls that historically used us, and on the flip side, our department responds apparatus past a staffed combination station rather than call it for aid.
We have become an acquaintance. We took the relationships for granted; we didn’t foster them and grow them through strong leadership and hard work. I am not OK with this. From the trenches, I will continue to rebuild the relationships our organizations once shared. Someday, a leader that puts relationships above politics and personal egos, will emerge and take over our department.
        So, what sort of mutual aid agreement do you have? Are you a part of a department that builds relationships with neighboring departments, or are you content to have acquaintances?

I was intent on steering clear of the ongoing debate over search vs. no search. Of course, the true debate is much deeper than that, encompassing many other facets of FF safety and operational priorities. I cannot in good faith ignore these issues and I do owe it to my two readers to sound off. Bear in mind that there is a certain amount of ignorance to me, ignorance that I hope to carry my entire life; I have not been a part of a LODD. I have not experienced the loss of a brother or sister. I pray I never do. I cannot imagine the emotions involved. Perhaps, if that unspeakable horror occurs, I will someday alter this opine.

First of all, WTF are the 16 Life Safety Initiatives? I can’t remember them, can you? How successful is a program going to be when no one can remember them let alone relate to how they can be integrated into our daily business? Heck, even when I sit down to read them, I have to resort to Webster’s to try and define what they are trying to actually say. It sure would be easier to just say, “Eat better, exercise more, get regular health screenings, train, train, train, train, train….. “ You get the point.

Second item: Everyone Goes Home. Really? Is this what we need to be teaching? I think Chief Goldfeder was in the right ballpark with this one, and I love Omnus Cedo Domus (Latin for EGH), but the reality is, and even Billy G will tell you, everyone doesn’t always go home! Now I don’t think Chief is off base, as his point is well made and documented towards what I believe is the mission to stop dying for STUPID reasons. When LODD deaths are caused by lack of PPE, apparatus accidents, seatbelts not being used, and all the other dumb ways we can find to cause mayhem, attention is needed. I see a problem when the EGH mantra is pushed and then used to argue against searching buildings or when EGH becomes a portion of a risk management checklist. “No, we won’t search the house because we don’t want to violate the EGH rule…..” No thanks, not in my department.

Now for the cutting-edge, “Victim Survivability Profiling”: Are you serious? When do I fit this into my incident command system? Is this going to screw with my COAL WAS WEALTH (not that I can remember that one at two AM)? Does this come with a “challenge flag” like in the NFL, so that if the victim doesn’t agree they can get an instant replay? I say we take the “victim” out and add “FF” to survivability profile, using “FF Survivability Profiling” to decide when to go in. If I can put FF’s in, I do and we search. Bottom line is that the house isn’t vacant until WE say it’s vacant. If there is any way we can put a crew in to search, we should. Now I’m not saying, “Risk management be damned”, but we have an obligation…

Yes, an obligation. Even though I am a Volunteer Firefighter, there is a certain obligation. That’s right, I volunteer. I volunteer to train, to jump from bed at 2 AM, and to even put myself in jeopardy of dying to search a structure for occupants. I don’t have to, but I will because I volunteer; because I feel obligated. That doesn’t mean I have a “Hero Complex”, or a death wish/martyr attitude. I will risk a lot to save a lot, and sometimes that may mean risking a lot just in case someone, anyone, is in the structure. I guess in the end it comes down to the simple fact that no one makes me do it, I just feel I have to. It’s what we, firefighters, are expected to do. We go into burning buildings and search.

The 16 LSI and EGH campaigns are great for the overweight, undertrained, PPE-lacking lazy MUTTS. Let’s move forward by reducing the LODD caused by preventable, unnecessary incidents, but until civilians stop dying in fires, firefighters will search and on occasion, die for them.

Another year is upon us, and for many, the passing into a new year creates a time of reflection and an impetus for a promise of change.
        What is your “New Year’s Resolution”? Did you accomplish last year’s? Or are you like others that know they will not achieve the goal, so therefore, do not set one?
        As 2011 moves forward, I issue a challenge to all of us to be the leaders and warriors we know we should be. If you haven’t done your best, then start; challenge yourself and others to reach the potential we all need to realize in order to truly bring excellence to our organizations.
        Easy to say. Not so easy to live. Failures: they will occur. Wins: they will be all the better; absolutely earned. Let us begin by feeding each other positives rather than dwelling on negatives. I am guilty of sweating the small stuff; guilty of getting hung up on the roadblocks in life that I cannot control or influence. What wasted effort! I cannot fathom the amount of time and energy I wasted last year on issues out of my control. What change could I influence if I had that time back? More time spent being a positive role model to the new recruits; more time used for company drills; time for coaching brothers and sisters or just being a good friend.
        A close friend of mine was good at kicking me out of the rut. You know the rut, the one we lie in, sorrowful over the wrongs done us by “the man”. He would listen for a bit as I lamented and whined. Finally hearing enough, he would issue his declaration, “If it’s so bad, quit. But quit talking about it and do it, ‘cause your starting to drag us down, too.” Well said. Shit or get off the pot, but quit stinkin’ the place up!
        When we see a fellow warrior heading for the rut, let’s stop them. When a brother or sister is down, let’s pick them up! We owe it to each other and to the organizations and communities we serve to be the best we can be at what we do. That means constant training, positive attitudes, impeccable teamwork and professionalism, and the one thing perhaps hardest to swallow, being a good follower, even if the leader isn’t a leader.