The National Fire Protection Association’s website is full of useful information, particularly if you’re looking to distribute for pre-made safety advice for your community. This page has a listing of the many safety tip sheets the NFPA makes available in PDF form. The Halloween flier includes this advice:
When choosing a costume, stay away from billowing or long trailing fabric. If your child is wearing a mask, make sure the eye holes are large enough so they can see out.
Provide children with flashlights to carry for lighting or glow sticks as part of their costume.
Dried flowers, cornstalks and crepe paper are highly flammable. Keep these and other decorations well away from all open flames and heat sources, including light bulbs, and heaters.
It is safest to use a flashlight or battery-operated candle in a jack-o-lantern. If you use a real candle, use extreme caution. Make sure children are watched at all times when candles are lit. When lighting candles inside jack-o-lanterns, use long, fireplacestyle matches or a utility lighter. Be sure to place lit pumpkins well away from anything that can burn and far enough out of way of trick-or-treaters, doorsteps, walkways and yards.
Remember to keep exits clear of decorations, so nothing blocks escape routes.
Tell children to stay away from open flames. Be sure they know how to stop, drop and roll if their clothing catches fire. (Have them practice, stopping immediately, dropping to the ground, covering their face with hands, and rolling over and over to put the flames out.)
With fire departments laying off firefighters across the North America, Firehouse Shirt Club finds a way to give back to the industry it honors.
It is common in the fire service for firefighters to swap station T-shirts from other fire departments. Most fire departments generally have more than one station. Firefighters locally and nationally often compete with one another over which department has the best T-shirt that represents their station.
Firehouse Shirt Club is a T-shirt company owned and operated by career firefighter Jim Scano and entrepreneur, Brett Hersley. The company features one authentic fire department station T-shirt every month from real fire departments.
The FEMA App contains preparedness information for different types of disasters, an interactive checklist for emergency kits, a section to plan emergency meeting locations, information on how to stay safe and recover after a disaster, a map with FEMA Disaster Recovery Center locations (one-stop centers where disaster survivors can access key relief services) and Shelters, general ways the public can get involved before and after a disaster, and the FEMA blog. Terms of Use for the FEMA App: http://www.fema.gov/app.
According to the Nation Fire Protection Association, NFPA, planning ahead can help make this Halloween a fire-safe one. Taking simple fire safety precautions, like making sure fabrics for costumes and decorative materials are flame-resistant, can prevent fires.
During the four-year-period of 2003-2007, NFPA estimates that decorations were the item first ignited in an estimated average of 1,240 reported home structure fires per year. These fires caused an estimated average of seven civilian deaths, 53 civilian injuries and $20 million in direct property damage per year.
Check out this video by Judy Comoletti, NFPA Division Manager of Public Education, in which she talks about how planning ahead can help make this Halloween a fire-safe one.
MARINE CORPS AIR STATION MIRAMAR, Calif. — Suit up, get down range, assess the situation, decide what tools to use on site, control contamination while fully encapsulated in a “Level A” hazardous material suit with a limited amount of air and an alarm that goes off after every 12 seconds of non-movement, come back and go through multiple level decontamination. You have 45 minutes; go!
A Marine must be able to do all of these things and be as proficient at these skills as to instruct others on how to accomplish the same mission as a chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear instructor.
While most Marines associate the CBRN job field with running the gas chamber for annual training, CBRN units do more than that, explained Sgt. Joshua M. Duncan, the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar CBRN school non-commissioned officer in charge and a Sacramento, Calif., native.
CBRN defense specialists go through a five-month training school where they learn hazardous material detection, containment and decontamination. This involves learning wind patterns that show where hazardous gases and vapors can range, different types of hazards, and practice for multiple types of scenarios they may come across.
With research showing that 40 percent of victims involved in building collapses suffer from crush injuries, Dr. David Tan describes some important tips for treating these injuries and examines crush injuries in the USAR setting.
A comfortable boot is essential to safety on the fireground because, when your feet hurt, you can lose mobility and stamina.
The Shoe Technology Company, STC, has put together a boot fitting guide to assist you in selecting the right boot for your foot.
STC feels it is very important for people to take a few minutes to properly fit the shoes that you will spend 8 + hours a day in. When you go to the store and buy casual shoes, athletic shoes or possibly dress shoes it would be a normal thing to try on 2-3 pairs before you get the one that fits you best. Hence it only makes sense to do the same with your boots. We recommend trying on one in the size you measure on a proper footwear measuring device like a Brannock device and then trying the ½ size up or down or either way on width to really get the best fit possible. A couple of things to consider are that if the boots are not comfortable when you try them on you should not count on them becoming more comfortable with wear in order to make them bearable. You also should be looking for a fit that does not have your heel lifting up and down whilst walking. If your heel is lifting, the footwear will prematurely wear out and also cause you discomfort. It is better to try your boots on later in the day as your feet tend to swell over the course of the day. This will help you select footwear that is not too snug. Try your boots on wearing the socks you would wear whilst working and lastly a good wool sock or wool polypropylene blend will give you a lot more all day comfort then a cotton sock.
By Lt. Michael Swiman, Wake Forest Fire Department
Many people ask what it is like to be on shift for 24 hours straight. Each shift day can vary wildly, so it is hard to say what a “typical” day is like. At my department, our work cycle is: on for 24, off 24, on 24, off 24, on 24, off four days. Our shifts start at 0700 and end the next morning. Now, don’t get me wrong, this is a great schedule. And while we do miss our families, our shiftmates are our second family and definitely leave nothing unturned. I took some notes from a recent work cycle on the engine to which I’m assigned – here they are:
Sunday
The first day of my shift happened to be a Sunday, which is like a free day at work 98 percent of the time in my department. The first question of the day – regardless of where you work – is ‘What are we eating today?’ No matter where you work in public safety, this is one of the hardest questions to answer. It doesn’t matter if it’s two or eight people (just FYI, my station has eight people on shift).
As we ponder the day’s food dilemma, we begin to do our first-day-of-cycle checks on our respective apparatus. During the checks, we are going over all power equipment, the apparatus itself, all equipment on the rig and the EMS gear. By mid-morning we’re on to hose testing. Luckily the amount of hose that we are assigned to test is minimal, as the truck company did the majority of it last work cycle while we were out servicing hydrants.
Each year in Oklahoma, about 70 persons die in house fires. For those house fires where smoke alarm status was known, more than three-quarters of deaths occurred in homes without a working smoke alarm. Yet, working smoke alarms can cut the risk of dying in a house fire by half.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that deaths from fires and burns are the third leading cause of injury deaths in the home in the United States. Nearly 90 percent of all fire deaths occur in the home. Children 4 years of age and younger, adults 65 years of age and older, persons with disabilities, and persons living in rural areas are among those who are at increased risk of injury or death resulting from a fire. The most common sources of house fires are cigarettes, heating devices, electrical failure/malfunction, and flammable liquids. In only 3 1/2 minutes, the heat from a house fire can reach more than 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature can reach over 300 degrees in rooms that are not even on fire; this is hot enough to melt plastic and kill the people in those rooms. Fire produces gases and fumes that can make you sleepy, weak, and confused. You cannot smell these fumes, so if you are asleep the smell will not wake you, but a smoke alarm will.
NORTH HUDSON, N.J. – North Hudson firefighters are seeing red after being told they can’t be seen at a fire wearing the pink T-shirts they purchased to participate in this month’s Breast Cancer Awareness campaign.
According to Tom Calucci, vice president of the North Hudson Firefighters Association, firefighters with North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue received permission from the department brass in September to participate in this month’s national Pink for a Cure campaign.
The firefighters ordered and paid for the T-shirts; and the lion share were sold to raise money for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a foundation dedicated to finding a cure for breast cancer, Calucci said. (more…)
The National Fire Protection Association’s website is full of useful information, particularly if you’re looking to distribute for pre-made safety advice for your community. This page has a listing of the many safety tip sheets the NFPA makes available in PDF form. The Halloween flier includes this advice:
By Lance Cpl. Erica Disalvo
LION Connects
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