FAAC News

William Greenwood has been in fire services for more than twenty-seven years. As Chief of Warwick, RI’s T.F. Green International Airport Fire Department and Senior Staff Instructor New Hampshire Fire Academy, he thinks a lot about the way that stress affects performance—and he has bad news. Stress can have such a big impact that it … Continued

Last year vehicular use-of-force by law enforcement was again in the news after an Arkansas state trooper hit a pregnant woman’s car to enforce a traffic stop. This flipped the vehicle: The inciting incident? The motorist was driving 84mph in a 70mph zone and took more than 2 minutes to pull over. Public outcry followed. … Continued

  Last winter Jim Vaughn (battalion chief with the Normal, IL, Fire Department and Field Staff Instructor and Regional Representative for the Illinois Fire Service Institute) discussed cold-weather fire department training for an article for Firehouse magazine. Vaughn stressed that “Although a large part of North America sees freezing temperatures, departments that are located in … Continued

  Firefighting foams are essential tools for fighting fires, making firefighter foam training essential to every fire brigade. When it comes to particularly hard to extinguish fires, like those whose source includes flammable liquids and/or petroleum (i.e., Class B fires), aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) is still the recommended option where lives or critical infrastructure are … Continued

U.S. traffic fatalities have climbed throughout the pandemic, despite 30 years of steady declines. Early this year the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced that in just the first nine months of 2021 traffic fatalities increased 12%. That’s the largest such jump in fatalities since 1975. In total, 31,720 people died in traffic accidents … Continued

Fights on the bus. Verbal harassment and assault. A bus window smashed with a hurled rock. These aren’t new problems, nor unique to Detroit and other major urban hubs. But the tight labor market and high-stress/high-stakes nature of operating public transit in a COVID context has helped the rest of the world sit up and … Continued

Given the realities of climate change and energy production, we are moving to a ZEB (zero-emissions bus) world sooner than later and not looking back. As more agencies explore what it will take to transition their fleet, they’re beginning to appreciate that, as one European transit agency recently put it, “buying the [zero-emissions] bus is … Continued

Back in 2011, Noel Maitland (at that time lieutenant and 15-year veteran with the FDNY) wrote an excellent fire department training op-ed for Fire Engineering. Maitland recalled: “I had an officer who taught me to always test the hydrant on a fire run, even if it’s for one of those annoying automatic alarms that always … Continued

In a November article for Fire Engineering, Burlington (NC) Fire Department battalion chief Paul Watlington sang the praises—and spoke to the brain-bending complexities—of pump operations. It isn’t just that each department has a unique mix of equipment. And it’s not only that new equipment and apparatuses enter the market, altering some of the fundamentals underlying … Continued

Michael Stewart, a training equipment specialist, spoke to the significance of the technological advancements the military base has. He pointed out how the simulation training center has capabilities for marines to experience simulation training in convoys as well as 12 other marine vehicle trainings. “The benefits are immeasurable. We get the marines in here — … Continued