What To Know When Joining Your Local Fire Dept.

Making the decision to join your local fire department is an honorable one. You also probably understand that you will need to spend some time away from friends and family to get squared away. The upside of that is the fact that you will also make a lot of new friends that will also become…

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Mutual Aid Plans on Long Island

Within the last 10 years or so, we’ve seen fire departments in the area adopt mutual aid preplans. The first type of preplan that’s been around for a long time is for when a department reactivates for a working fire. The newest type of mutual aid plan that’s been popping up around the island are…

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Fire Dept. Christmas Parades

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! In December, it has become tradition for Fire Departments on Long Island to have their annual parades. Some departments keep it small while others decorate their entire fleet. It’s a lot of work to make sure all of the decorations are working, and it also takes a…

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Training With A Twist

By far the most important part of being a firefighter is knowing how to do your job. The only way we get there is by training. From the probie to the senior man, everybody must brush up on their skills. How do you train? Do you mulch over the same drill every week? Or do…

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What The Community Should Know About Volunteer Firefighters

Being that volunteer firefighting is embedded in the history of Long Island, the members of the community are well aware of what we do, and who we are. Some may be proud of us, and others may think we’re a cult. Either way, when they call for us, we’re going to come help. The one…

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The Fire Service and Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving. The official kickoff of the Holiday Season. A time to reflect on what you’re thankful for, and a time to relax and eat with friends and family. For some, it might be sitting down and enjoying a meal with your fellow firefighters because you’re working that shift. One thing is for certain though…it tends…

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Reading Smoke

The ability to understand how smoke works is imperative for firefighters to know. We’ve used it for generations to help develop our strategies when it comes to fire suppression. For some, this may be a refresher. For others, this may give you some insight into reading smoke behavior, and why it’s important. For the most…

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Earning Your Stripes

Emergency services have a wide range of levels when it comes to experience. You have probies, guys with a couple of years, officers, and senior members. As the new guy, your job is to learn as much as you can from your officers and the members who have been doing this for a few years.…

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Collyer’s Mansion Conditions

As firefighters, we know that when we hear this term, we’re in for a rough one. For those that may not know what it is, it’s a term for a bad hoarding situation within a structure. Where did this term come from? Why is this important for us to know? How do we deal with…

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The Backseat Officer

To be an officer, you need to be able to multitask. Sometimes depending on the situation, every part of your mind is occupied by what’s going on, and that’s ok. That’s why we have a chain of command. One of the jobs we have as officers is assigning roles to our crew in the back.…

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