The 2009 Fire/EMS Safety, Health and Survival Week took place June 14-20, and this year's theme was 'Protect Yourself: Your Safety, Health and Survival Are Your Responsibility.'
Featured Column
Another Letter From the Chief for Safety, Health and Survival Week... By Isaac Abraham Fudpucker, Chief
Metropolitan Fire Department
I never thought I'd have to point this out, but our policy forbidding cell phone use while driving also applies to all fireground operations. I don't care how big and exciting the fire is, or how many people subscribe to your Twitter feed, wait until decontamination and cleanup to haul out your Blackberry. Full story (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)
Firefighter Safety: Time for a Change
We should put aside our differences in philosophy, step back from our "higher order" debates, disengage from our kitchen table rhetoric and ask ourselves this: What will it take for me, yes me, as a single individual to make things safer?
Full Story
Safety Starts at the Top
This year's theme for the Week, "Protect Yourself: Your Safety, Health and Survival Are Your Responsibility," is not just for firefighters; it is, after all, a proposal by the International Association of Fire Chiefs.
Full Story
Remembering Charleston: 2 Years Later
As apparatus streamed into the scene on June 18, 2007, no one knew that hours later they would be witness to the largest line-of-duty death incident — after 9/11 —since Boston's Hotel Vendome in the seventies.
Full Story
Five Points for First Responder Fitness
To celebrate this year's Fire/EMS Safety, Health and Survival Week, I thought it appropriate to elaborate on the five key health points put forth by the International Association of Fire Chiefs.
Full Story
A Time-out for Safety
Many fire and EMS agencies are taking a time-out from regular training to have a safety stand-down. My department is replacing our monthly training meeting with a review of the International Seat Belt Pledge and a cook-out.
Full Story
Food for Thought
From The Kitchen Table
The Monkey Parable
for Safety Week By Ben Waller In honor of Safety Week, I offer the following — The Monkey Parable. Once upon a time, some researchers conducted an experiment. They obtained five monkeys and placed them into a single cage. In the center of the cage was a stairway that terminated in thin air.
June 17th: Remembering Boston & FDNY By Christopher J. Naum
June 17th marks the anniversary of two significant fire service incidents that resonate with the values, doctrine and philosophy that define the principles of Fire/EMS Safety, Health and Survival Week.
Structural Size-Up and Situational Awareness
By Christopher J. Naum
Building Construction, Command Risk Management and Firefighter Safety
The relationships of Building Construction, Command Risk Management and Firefighter Safety are interdependent and formulative to all facets of structural fire operations. These three domains must be mastered for any significant changes to the continuing adverse trends in firefighter line of duty death and injury rate can be substantially made within the fireground operations setting. Full Column
Firefighting and the Built Environment
If you don't fully understand how a building performs or reacts under fire conditions and the variables that can influence its stability and degradation, movement of fire and products of combustion and the required resources for suppression in terms of staffing, apparatus and required fire flows, then you will be functioning and operating in a reactionary manner. Full Column
FireRescue1 Safety Columns
PPE Update By Jeffrey O. and Grace G. Stull Sponsored by Globe
S.O. Sidelines By Fire Department Safety Officers Association
The Monkey Parable 
June 17th: Remembering Boston & FDNY
Building Construction, Command Risk Management and Firefighter Safety
Firefighting and the Built Environment
