Search
Menu
News

WFC News

Coronado (CA) Fire Battalion Chief Perry Peake Plays Pivotal Search And Rescue Role
Coronado (CA) Fire Battalion Chief Perry Peake Plays Pivotal Search And Rescue Role
Posted: Oct 10, 2017

Coronado (CA) Fire Battalion Chief Perry Peake Plays Pivotal Search And Rescue Role

Perry Peake is a Battalion Chief for the Coronado Fire Department, in charge of fire operations and emergency preparedness, which is a significant accomplishment in itself. But there is much more to the story, as Peake is also the Senior Leader for Task Force 8, which is one of 28 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) elite units in the United States.
Peake, is the lone original member of Task Force 8 and he described the early days of the Urban Search and Rescue squad. “In 1991 the program was established nationally. I was a Rescue Captain at the time in San Diego Fire and I was assigned to the city’s only heavy rescue unit. When San Diego was selected for a task force, we made it a regional team. We carry 210 members and we can deploy 70 people at a time on an incident. We are three deep and have a water rescue team, dog handlers, doctors, and structural engineers. There are thousands of firefighters in the region and we have a max of 210 in California Task Force 8. It’s considered a privilege to get selected. Most of the task force members have spent thousands of dollars of their own money and time to get their training.”

Peake has responded to most of the major disasters in the past two decades as a member of Task Force 8, including being in charge of the task force at 9-11, working the still-burning World Trade Center for 10 days.

And he was part of the unit which worked Hurricane Katrina, being in the New Orleans area for 22 days. Peake recalled the natural catastrophe and said, “We had the Navy flying Chinooks for us, and we loaded our boats in the helicopter every morning.” Peake later showed me photos from the flooded areas in and around New Orleans. Task Force members paddled their boats through and among houses, rescuing residents from the rooftops. For guidance for their boats, they tried to stay inside the telephone and power poles that normally align the streets.

Read More at www.coronadonewsca.com
Read more
  • 598
  • 0
  • Article rating: No rating
Posted: Oct 10, 2017

Oshkosh Airport Products Celebrates 100 Year Anniversary; Showcases New Technologies at Inter Airport Europe

OSHKOSH, WIS. – Oshkosh Airport Products, LLC, an Oshkosh Corporation (NYSE: OSK) company, will celebrate Oshkosh Corporation’s 100 Year Anniversary at inter airport Europe, Stand C90, on October 10-13 at the Munich Trade Fair in Munich, Germany. The company will showcase and demonstrate a number of new technologies now available to airport customers around the world, including a Striker® Simulator virtual reality training system.

“The year 2017 is a historic year in Oshkosh Corporation’s history, and we are proud to celebrate this important milestone with our customers and industry colleagues at inter airport Europe,” said Erik Lampe, Oshkosh Airport Products group vice president and general manager. “One hundred years ago, our founders designed two vitally important all-wheel drive innovations that changed the world of transportation and today, we’re still innovating with products like the new Oshkosh® Striker 8 x 8 ARFF vehicle.”

Inter airport Europe visitors will have the opportunity to “test drive” the Oshkosh Striker Simulator virtual reality training system, responding to simulated emergency situations in a virtual reality cab environment. The system features actual cockpit components from the Oshkosh Striker vehicle, and includes a complete 180-degree view ahead as well as an overhead video monitor showing the Snozzle® high reach extendable turret in action. The Striker virtual reality training system depicts different environmental and weather conditions such as rain, snow, fog, night, and bright daylight as well as the delivery of dry chemical, foam, water, and even Halon.

Other componentry on display includes Oshkosh’s innovative EcoEFP™ foam percentage test system. EcoEFP’s patent pending electronic foam proportioning system allows ARFF crews to test the foam percentages without discharging any agent from the vehicle. The K-Factor™ system display is a new alignment tool that utilizes a sensor on the Snozzle piercing tip and a video monitor inside the cab to display a target for the operator.

Finally, the Oshkosh interactive RunwayReady™ telematics system display shows remote diagnostics and vehicle readiness capabilities. This unique system enables maintenance teams to remotely check vehicle fault codes, and to receive maintenance reminders and alerts, as well as other data from a smart phone or similar device. 

These innovative technologies and systems are available on the entire range of Oshkosh Striker vehicles, including the new Oshkosh Striker 8 x 8 apparatus with its matching pair of Scania rear-mounted, Tier 4F low-emission engines that deliver up to 1540 horsepower driving all eight wheels. 

“The Striker Simulator, and other interactive displays we will showcase at inter airport Europe represent the ARFF industry’s most comprehensive approach to aircraft emergency response,” added Lampe. “We will have experts on hand at Stand C90 to explain and demonstrate their benefits and advantages.”

 

About Oshkosh Airport Products

Oshkosh Airport Products, LLC, an Oshkosh Corporation company, is a designer and builder of industry-leading airport firefighting and snow removal vehicles. Its flagship Striker® Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting (ARFF) vehicle and Oshkosh® H-Series™ snow removal chassis are known for their durability and superior performance and sold throughout the world. For more information, visit www.oshkoshairport.com. 

 

About Oshkosh Corporation

Founded in 1917, Oshkosh Corporation is 100 years strong and continues to make a difference in people’s lives. Oshkosh brings together a unique set of integrated capabilities and diverse end markets that, when combined with the Company’s MOVE strategy and positive long-term outlook, illustrate why Oshkosh is a different integrated global ind

Read more
  • 278
  • 0
  • Article rating: No rating
Posted: Oct 10, 2017

GORE® Particulate Hood First to be Certified

ELKTON, MARYLAND — W. L. Gore & Associates announced that its GORE® Particulate Hood is the first particulate hood to be certified to the new 2018 Edition of the NFPA 1971 Standard, Standard on Protective Ensembles for Structural Fire Fighting and Proximity Fire Fighting. 

Manufactured and distributed by Majestic Fire Apparel, this hood is currently the only certified choice that 

• blocks more potentially harmful particulates than any other hood  — 99.9% of particles between 0.1 and 1.0 microns in size,

• maintains this 99.9% level of protection even after 100 wash cycles, and 

• delivers proven reliability and durability backed by system-level testing.

The GORE® Particulate Hood provides certified particulate-blocking throughout the entire hood — not just in selected areas. Proven with both the testing specified in the Standard and system-level testing done by an independent laboratory, this exceptionally durable hood maintains its 99.9% level of particulate-blocking performance for at least 100 wash cycles. The hood also has an inspection port that enables firefighters to visually inspect the protective barrier. 

According to Holly Blake, North American product manager, the Gore team worked to ensure that the hood maintains its 99.9% protective performance beyond the 20 wash cycles required by the Standard. “The fire industry has learned that it is extremely important to wash hoods after every call, so we knew that we needed to provide a durable product that could withstand frequent washing,” she said. “Having a hood that maintains its protection for only a few weeks is really not an option, so we verified that the GORE® Particulate Hood would meet or exceed both the Standard’s Particulate-Blocking test and system-level testing after 100 washes. In fact, the level of protection maintained by Gore’s hood is higher after 100 washes than the protection level of other particulate hoods when they are new.” 

Available in two knit options — Ultra C6.2 (black) and Nomex® blend (white), the GORE® Particulate Hood is being sold through Majestic Fire Apparel’s dealers. Contact your dealer to order your GORE® Particulate Hood today. For more information, visit majhoods.com/Gore or GoreHoods.com.  

 

About Majestic Fire Apparel

Majestic Fire Apparel, Inc. is a premier manufacturer of fire retardant hoods, accessories, and ARC-rated apparel. With facilities located in Lehighton, Pennsylvania, Majestic is an ISO 9001 registered company that maintains a compliant Quality Management System. MFA is committed to the pursuit of better products that achieve optimal benefits for the fire service. The company’s focus on quality and new product development has attributed to its success in serving customers in the fire and safety industry for almost 20 years. www.majhoods.com

About Gore 

W. L. Gore & Associates is a global materials science company dedicated to transforming industries and improving lives. Founded in 1958, Gore has built a reputation for solving complex technical challenges in the most demanding environments — from revolutionizing the outerwear industry with GORE-TEX® fabric to creating medical devices that improve and save lives to enabling new levels of performance in the aerospace, pharmaceutical and mobile electronics markets, among other industries. The company is also known for its strong, team-oriented culture and continued recognition from the Great Place to Work® Institute. Headquartered in Newark, Delaware, Gore employs approximately 10,000 associates. Read more

  • 317
  • 0
  • Article rating: No rating
Posted: Oct 10, 2017

Advanced Forest Fire Fighting Project Seeks to Revolutionize Wildland Firefighting

A new digital system which can detect and monitor large-scale fires aims to revolutionize how firefighters approach forest fires and is set to drastically reduce environmental and property damage and protect human lives.

The University of Westminster is a partner in the Advanced Forest Fire Fighting (AF3) project, which involves 20 institutions from 10 countries. The project aims to improve the efficiency of current firefighting operations and the protection of human lives, the environment and property by developing innovative ground and aerial technologies to ensure the integration between new and existing systems.

The University of Westminster has developed so called Low-Power Wireless Ground Sensor Nodes (LPWGSN) and accompanying drone technology which together can detect wild forest fires in their early stages and can monitor them in real time, enabling large scale wildland firefighting services to target these fires with unprecedented precision, day and night. The innovative technology is the pinnacle of the European Commission funded multi-million-euro AF3 activity.

The complete system, developed during the AF3 project, allows firefighters to drop pellets – filled with water or fire-retardant mixtures contained in biodegradable plastic pouches – from the air quickly and with precision targeting the areas to most effectively extinguish the fire. This can ultimately protect human lives, the environment and property, taking fires under control and putting them out before they spread.

The new sensor nodes and accompanying drone applications developed at Westminster’s Applied DSP and VLSI Research Group (ADVRG) are at the heart of this new firefighting approach and have been tested in real-life fires in Greece, Spain, and Israel. These tests have proved their worth in being cost-effective and groundbreaking in making the different parts of the system function effectively, helping firefighters get to the heart of the problem and address the fires quickly and more efficiently.

The sensor nodes can provide the fire services with invaluable information about environmental factors contributing to the fire, including location, temperature, humidity, pressure, wind speed and direction, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and oxygen levels.

Apart from forest fires, the innovative nodes and network can also be used in optimal agriculture, indoor climate control such as heating ventilation and air conditioning, and urban air quality monitoring.

Professor Izzet Kale, who is the Director of the (ADVRG) at the University of Westminster and who led the project, said: “This is a step change in the way wildfires and other forms of urban fires will be detected and stopped in their tracks before they spread and cause irreversible damage to the environment, wildlife, as well as loss of human life. The days of having a need for visibility and highly skilled pilots to undertake dangerous, sometimes inaccurate and ineffective water drops on wildfires will be over. The intelligent sensors and sensor network we have developed focuses on power autonomy and is designed around a ‘deploy and forget’ paradigm, enabling automated large scale strategic distribution in forests having high risks for fires.

“In addition to early fire detection, and monitoring the sensors and their ne

Read more
  • 288
  • 0
  • Article rating: No rating
Posted: Oct 10, 2017

Emergency Reporting Releases New Resources to Help Fire and EMS Agencies Choose the Right RMS

Emergency Reporting

Emergency Reporting (ER), the leader in cloud-based Fire and EMS records management and prevention software, has launched a new series of demo webinars and released a comparison checklist resource to assist fire departments and EMS agencies in their search for a better records management system (RMS).

The software comparison “cheat sheet” gives firefighting and EMS agencies a fast, easy way to compare their existing software to other RMS providers and determine if it’s still the best fit for their changing needs.

Emergency Reporting’s cloud-based software has been deemed “the most stable, secure, and trustworthy” by its 114,000 authorized users in part because it has been led and managed by the same owners – with actual Fire/EMS field experience – since its founding in 2003.

“Stability, security and ease of use are all-important in this industry,” says Ed O’Neill, Executive Director of Emergency Reporting.

“We know that when it’s time to switch to a better reporting and records management system it can be a daunting, time-consuming task,” says O’Neill. “Most Fire/EMS agencies are required to review multiple software providers before making a selection. Offering this new comparison checklist gives fire chiefs, IT managers, EMS decision makers, and administrators an easy, at-a-glance tool to quickly identify key differences in features and benefits.”

The live demo webinars are free, hour-long demonstrations offered once a month to prospective customers looking for an overview of what ER has to offer.

O’Neill says the webinars and comparison checklist are especially helpful at a time when there is a lot of uncertainty with other companies in the industry, and many agencies are considering a switch to a more stable, trustworthy RMS provider. "This type of constant change can cause disruption for customers and delays in long-promised improvements. We’re hoping to make it as easy as possible for agencies to make the right choice when upgrading their records management software.”

To download Emergency Reporting’s Software Comparison Checklist, visit: http://bit.ly/ER-Comparison-Checklist. To sign up for an upcoming webinar, visit https://explore.emergencyreporting.com/webinar-schedule/. To request more information or schedule a customized 1:1 online demo with your station or agency, visit: https://explore.emergencyreporting.com/information-request-form

Read more
  • 316
  • 0
  • Article rating: No rating
RSS
First56565657565856595661566356645665Last

Theme picker

Filter News Catagories

Search News Articles

Terms Of Use | Privacy Statement - Copyright 2025 by Washington Fire Chiefs