Fire Chief

Tests conducted by a radio technician in Florida suggest that the problem isn’t the digital radios at all, but rather firefighters who haven’t been trained adequately on how to use them in high-noise environments.

The International Association of Fire Chiefs celebrated its 135th anniversary during Fire-Rescue International last week in Denver. The theme of the conference and exhibition was “Soaring to New Heights,” but make no mistake — this was a conference about chiefs.

Recently I read Generally Speaking by Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy (Ret.), which turned out to be a really good book on leadership and an overall great read. I would recommend highly it to all FIRE CHIEF readers.

Twenty years ago, the International Association of Fire Chiefs organized and funded a meeting of fire chiefs, fire mechanics and apparatus manufacturers to discuss a significant increase in apparatus maintenance issues and liability. As a result of that first meeting, the Apparatus Maintenance Section was created, the Emergency Vehicle Technician Certification program evolved and NFPA 1901 grew muscles.

In 1873, in response to fires that nearly destroyed Chicago, Portland and Boston, New York City Fire Chief Eli Bates invited a group of chief engineers to attend a demonstration of his department’s three new aerial ladders. The result was the International Association of Fire Engineers, later renamed the International Association of Fire Chiefs.

One of the longtime problems in public safety communications has been the fact that the frequencies used by first-responder agencies are dispersed throughout the spectrum chart. In the name of interoperability, multiple vendors have designed myriad network-based solutions that allow patching between systems operating in different bands, but there’s always a fundamental caveat.

When I first entered the business world, conventional wisdom held that you never talked about sex, politics or religion. These topics were considered taboo and their consequences feared. But today, sex and politics are headline news and hard to avoid in conversations. Religion is discussed, but primarily in the context of warring religious factions.

My wife, Diana, and I recently returned from a two-week vacation in Norway and Denmark. Whenever we travel, I like to stop and talk shop with firefighters whenever possible.

The fire service takes ladders for granted — until one fails. Boyd Cole saw too many ladder problems as a volunteer firefighter. Consequently, he spent his career raising industry awareness and advocating safer ladders for firefighters to climb and crawl on.

Brian Fontes, the new CEO of the National Emergency Number Association, told Urgent Communications Senior Writer Donny Jackson that creating a universal service fund could solve the funding woes that long have plagued the public safety answering point sector. It’s a great idea, and long overdue.