FireFighterNation

Response times are a critical and much-scrutinized quality measure for fire departments, but too often the focus for reducing them is on driving to the incident. In this article, Jake Rhoades and Tom Jenkins look at some technological solutions that can shave seconds off response without encouraging poor driving practices.

A federal grant to hire eight firefighters was rejected at a Board of Mayor and Aldermen meeting, after Mayor Ted Gatsas vetoed the measure.

Across the country, fire departments have dealt with unprecedented budget shortfalls over the past several years, with little relief in sight. In this interview, retired BC Stewart McGehee highlights additional challenges that are coming, and argues that fire departments must be willing to explore new models of service delivery, including giving up some services in order to maintain those that are core to the fire service’s mission.

A reader is looking for ways to influence local politicians about the importance of not reducing department staffing. Nozzlehead stresses that the best way to do so is to lay out the facts—and let them produce the emotions.

It goes without saying nowadays that the economy has weighed heavily on the fire service, so much so that some departments have had to get extremely creative about finding ways to generate funds. Jane Jerrard talks with the Baltimore Fire Department as well as a Baltimore city councilman about the city’s controversial plan to place paid advertisements on apparatus as a means to generate funds.