The firefighter who trains hard will be comfortable and aggressive on the fire ground, while a firefighter who doesn't train and thinks they are aggressive will be reckless.
The firefighter who trains hard will be comfortable and aggressive on the fire ground, while a firefighter who doesn't train and thinks they are aggressive will be reckless.
Toxic culture takes another one. Hopefully the uppers clue in.
Thanks for the endless hours and sleepless nights providing an invaluable service to the front lines and our communities.
Good morning all:
Effective immediately, I have decided to take a break from the day to day operations of HRMFireNews. For most of a decade now, the operations of this fire news outlet have been an all-consuming every day commitment. One cannot do such things forever.
Despite the occasional rant/troll/dust up, this has been a tremendously positive experience. That said, quite frankly, I am tired out.
The time required to do this correctly, in the way I want, is substantial. It is an every day thing, and it times, it completely takes over life. To operate that way has been a choice of mine and a fulfilling one, but I’ve also found myself looking ahead and somewhat dreading continuing to be glued to my keyboard. This is new and has caused me to re-evaluate.
Half-assing it isn’t an appealing option. I’ve always felt I would only do this as long as I could give 100% commitment.
While many things have changed for the better and I feel this project has accomplished lots, I am fatigued. I can’t tackle advocating on certain issues with the same enthusiasm I used to and while keeping the public informed during emergencies is a privilege, like I said, it’s hard to maintain that pace forever as a hobby. I've basically been giving the fire gods a free claim on all my spare time for most of a decade, which is tough to maintain.
I will be honest, I do not know if this is a temporary or permanent break. Since starting the page, I have not spent any serious amount of time away from the page, so this will be new. I’m going to simply put things on hold for now and give thought to next steps.
To the members who are pushing for positive change: keep pushing. HRFE has an amazing number of incredibly capable, talented, and knowledgeable people who have made things better and will continue to. Much change is needed but the public is in good hands.
I need some time to think about what, if anything, I want to do next, and in order to do that, I need to get away from all of this.
To head off any questions that may follow, I should note there is nothing personally wrong. Also, nobody has forced or pushed me into doing this in any way, shape, or form. I simply have decided to think about the future.
To be honest, I’ve been thinking about doing this for a while but given the Tantallon Fire and the floods that followed last year I felt a responsibility to try to keep people informed through the full unfolding of those events from end to end, including the PIA.
I appreciate everybody’s tremendous support, including the public who follow and the many members who provide information/insight etc. Thank you. There are too many people to thank individually, but seriously, thank you.
In other news, I'm really, really, really looking forward to going hours or weeks or days or months without addressing "what's going on near so and so" or the latest problem.
After today, I will not be posting, responding to DMs, or writing the Sunday update during this hiatus. I will make a further announcement later on once I’ve finished reflecting on the future of the page.
Thank you all and enjoy your long weekends.
@HRMFireNews Theyre different codes for different categories. Code red is anything fire related (simple alarms to actual fires). Code brown, for example, is for chemical spills. It’s not for urgency, it’s for call type.
@HRMFireNews The frequency with which dispatchers second guess Fire Captains request for resources, who are the subject matter experts, and the ones who are on scene, is infuriating!
The leadership of the fire department either has no idea how bad the CAD/dispatching system is, or they do know and they're choosing not to fix it. Either way it's unacceptable.