Firefighter Tips

The FireRescue1 tips section offers tactical and safety advice aimed at helping fire and rescue personnel better deal with the difficult and dangerous situations encountered daily.

These tips and resources, provided by industry experts and members, range from ways to prep your apparatus for the winter to ensuring your SCBA face piece is properly cleaned. Because most tips are based off of real-world experience, we encourage you to submit your own tips.

All Firefighter Tips

Mastering communication in public safety

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In this tip, risk management expert Gordon Graham highlights the essential component needed for effective communication in the fire service

How to manage cold-weather calls

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Fire departments and individual members can take several measures to make cold weather operations safer and more comfortable

Firefighter safety: Wash your hood

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In Today's Tip, Lexipol co-founder Gordon Graham discusses how firefighters can reduce their cancer risk through PPE decontamination, particularly the hood. Get more tips from Gordon here.

First responders, are your families ready for a disaster?

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These 3 actions will help prepare your family in case of a natural disaster, so that you are able to help others

Fire response to active shooter events

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Learn how fire departments are becoming an integral part of active shooter incident response and how to keep firefighters safe on scene

Stage multiple safety officers to watch for collapse hazards

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An ideal collapse zone is set up to be at a minimum 1.5 times the height of the building to provide a large enough buffer zone

Think of road as a hot zone

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A simple shift in mindset to help every engineer avoid and survive a collision

Follow a going-to-bed routine for optimal sleep

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Transition from working, exercising, gaming or lounging with a predictable set of steps

Do your job as a driver or passenger

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Simple actions every engineer should observe to avoid and survive a collision

Keep high-performance members engaged with stretch goals

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Employees who raise the bar need to be pushed with special projects and recognized for their achievements

Collect and update member photos

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All departments should have a collection of member photos on hand for media inquiries

Achieve optimal sleep: Avoid caffeine, alcohol, tobacco before bed

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Stimulants or depressants that are ingested or inhaled can make it more difficult to fall asleep

Trust no one on the road

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Driving defensively is a critical step in avoiding apparatus collisions

Beware exploding vehicle struts

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When a vehicle is involved in fire, first responders face a variety of hazards: fuel, oils, hydraulic fluids, combustible metals, compressed flammable gases, toxic byproducts from burning plastics ...

Understand the ‘I’ in VEIS

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Vent-Enter-Search (VES), Vent-Enter-Isolate-Search (VEIS), Oriented Vent-Enter-Search. Whatever you want to call it, go ahead and call it that. I have always called it VES. The isolate component wa...

How to track behavioral health changes

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Many people are familiar with the American Heart Association’s Know Your Numbers program, which focuses on being aware of your status on cardiovascular risk factors. But not as many people think ab...

Where to start: Training on residential fireground tactics

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A review of basic fire development, tactical approaches and residential building construction

Wellness-focused station design

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By Eric Becker As a firefighter-turned-architectural designer, I am not only familiar with the elevated levels of stress and higher rates of PTSD experienced by firefighters, but also the evidence ...

Vigilance in the face of violence

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By Brad Van Ert Incidents involving violence against first responders are on the rise. For these incidents in which there is a known threat, first responders should have a heightened sense of cauti...

Treating our own members

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By Ben Thompson We run medical emergencies all the time, most of which have a successful outcome. Why should it be any different when we treat a fellow firefighter? And how can we be prepared for s...

Use the radio strap

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By Mark van der Feyst The radio strap is a very good aid, as it relocates the radio from the chest area to the hip area. When the radio is in the chest pocket, it sometimes reduces the person's mob...

Protecting the radio

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By Mark van der Feyst Some firefighters carry radios in their jacket chest pocket. Some carry it in a pocket on the sleeve. Officers often hold the radio in their hand the entire time as a way to f...

Clear communications wearing SCBA

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By Mark van der Feyst When wearing SCBA, it can be very difficult to communicate through the facepiece and more so through the radio. All SCBA manufacturers have built into their facepieces a way t...

Keep webbing in hidden places

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By Mark van der Feyst Webbing is a very versatile tool that can be used in many applications. Rolling a section of webbing in a donut roll and stuffing it into a medical glove is a good way to stor...

How to verify lightweight trusses

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By Mark van der Feyst When arriving at a structural fire, it can be difficult to figure out whether or not the building has lightweight trusses. Some jurisdictions are labeling the building on the ...

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