FAIRLAWN, NJ—PennWell Fire Group, publishers of Fire Engineering, FireRescue, and Fire Apparatus & Emergency Equipment, and producers of the world-renowned FDIC International firefighter training event, has recently joined forces with Tule Fog Productions LLC Lake Balboa, CA, creators of TheBattalion.tv Network, to launch the new “Firefighter True Reality Series” on fireengineering.com. This strategic training and educational alliance was finalized in late December 2015 and monthly broadcasts started posting January 2016 with, “A Block Fire in Fresno.”

The Web‐based firefighter reality series was originally launched in 2007 by founder David Furtado, who has been dedicated to capturing unscripted firefighting scenarios experienced by fire departments throughout North America. Offered on TheBattalion.tv Web site to members, these free Webisodes now have viewers in 48 countries. Series have also been produced in Santa Marta, Colombia, and Mexicali, Mexico and can be found in both English and Spanish on the Web site.

“We launched this series when no one was doing ‘true reality’ or ‘truly unscripted’ firefighting drama,” said Furtado. “As a life-long supporter of the men and women who save our lives every day, I felt showing these extraordinary people performing extraordinary jobs was the perfect way to train firefighters everywhere. Partnering with Fire Engineering, which has been dedicated to training firefighters and first responders for over 135 years, was a natural course of action for us.”

Fire Engineering’s Chief Editor, Bobby Halton, stated, “We are extremely excited to partner with Tule Fog to bring our audience these valuable videos. Our mission is to deliver in-depth, life-saving training to thousands of firefighters around the world and the ‘Firefighter True Reality Series’ is an outstanding resource for our community to see its members in action—the ultimate real-life training experience.”

The series can be found on fireengineering.com under the “Resources” section with links to Webisodes on fire, rescue, EMS, training, and series that are geographically based. New Webisodes are released every other Sunday on TheBattalion.tv site. Future endeavors between PennWell Fire Group and Tule Fog Productions include segments focused on family and department traditions as well as apparatus on real calls, which will be made available on PennWell Fire Group’s sister Web sites, firefighternation.com, fireapparatus.com, and FDIC.com later in 2016.

For more information, visit http://www.fireengineering.com/battalion-tv-network.html.

Investigators are on the scene of an early morning house fire in Renton on Friday. Firefighters were called to a vacant home at 14051 145th Avenue SE shortly after 4:30 a.m. Crews worked to get the fully involved fire under control, and managed to keep it from spreading to nearby homes. It is unclear what started the fire, but an investigation is underway.
- PUB DATE: 1/29/2016 7:46:01 AM - SOURCE: KOMO-TV ABC 4 and Radio 1000

Investigators are on the scene of an early morning house fire in Renton on Friday. Firefighters were called to a vacant home at 14051 145th Avenue SE shortly after 4:30 a.m. Crews worked to get the fully involved fire under control, and managed to keep it from spreading to nearby homes. It is unclear what started the fire, but an investigation is underway.
- PUB DATE: 1/29/2016 7:46:01 AM - SOURCE: KOMO-TV ABC 4 and Radio 1000

 

By Chris Daly

Over the past several weeks, there has been a video circulating the Internet that shows a responding tiller ladder in the state of Maryland. The video clearly depicts the ladder truck proceeding through a negative right-of-way intersection without stopping for a steady red light. I have spent the past few weeks monitoring the comments that have been posted under this video on social media outlets. I must confess that I found the number of comments supporting this type of behavior extremely disturbing. While I would expect these types of immature comments from younger firefighters whose profile pictures depict colorful muscle cars, the amount of “older” firefighters supporting this type of aggressive driving surprised me.

As someone who spends a great deal of time reading the comments under these types of videos to gauge the “pulse” of emergency vehicle drivers, I have discovered that almost every one of these videos contains the same types of comments when posted. These comments can be broken down into several response types, such as:

1. “You weren’t there, so you can’t comment.” OK, you are correct. I wasn’t there. However, most firefighters do reach a point in their careers when they are able to effectively judge the actions of other firefighters based on photographic or video evidence. Furthermore, as a crash reconstructionist, I can assure you that this video provides an enormous amount of valuable court-admissible evidence, which provides a great deal of insight into what took place. Just because you don’t like someone’s opinion doesn’t mean you can hide behind the “you weren’t there” defense. Most jury members weren’t present at a murder or robbery scene, but our justice system still lets them judge someone’s actions based upon the available evidence.
2. “If your house was on fire you’d want them to do that.” No, actually I wouldn’t. I would want the responding firefighters to drive safely and make sure they arrive at my house to put the fire out. May there be a time or two in your career where seconds make a difference? Perhaps. However, the absolute risk of speeding and driving through red lights does not justify this defense. The laws of Newtonian Physics do not change just because you are driving to a house fire instead of a fire alarm. The fire truck will crash regardless. Furthermore, my wife and kids drive down the highway much more frequently tha