Back to the Updates this week. It has been a busy one…

1.) Lt. Lemon gets “Combat Ready”

I hit the road with ELAFF HQ Training Captain “Stumpy” Doerr on Monday morning for a little learning session. Thanks to the Salisbury (NC) Fire Department and Rowan-Cabarrus Community College, Ricky Riley and Nick Martin of Traditions Training, LLC brought the “Combat Ready Firefighting” class to NC for the first time…and it was FREE for ALL North Carolina firefighters. How great is that? The room was full of Brothers and Sisters who made the trip (hours long for some) to gather ideas to take back to their departments. The 8 hour class was excellent and I walked out feeling incredibly motivated. I had the opportunity to meet Jonah Smith of The Hose Jockey, as well as West McBride of HPFirefighter.com, in person for the first time. They are both great guys. Jonah was so popular that Chief Riley even mentioned him mid-lecture, while looking for “the Charlotte guy, that radio geek”. Don’t worry, that’s a self-professed name.

All in all, it was a great class. Very motivational and straight-forward (despite the constant murmur of Charlotte firemen who were all jacked up on Sun Drop and Chick-fil-a sweet tea).

To cap it all off, Salisbury FD ran three reported structure fires through the duration of the class. Only one turned out to be a worker…the one with NOTHING SHOWING. There’s no better way to drive home the need to be “combat ready” and to “expect fire”.

I can’t wait for the premiere of the newest Traditions Training class, “Nick Martin presents: The Art of the Combat Ready 2.5″ leader line”.

2.) Andy Fredericks Training Days

I wasn’t able to make it to AFTD this year, but thankfully the AFTD crew kept a steady stream of real-time quotes from the lectures posted on Facebook and Twitter. Here are some of the best:

“Salka: Wear your radio – don’t carry it. No other better way to wear a radio.”

“Removing gasses and steam with a hose line isn’t ventilation. It’s smoke removal. It comes AFTER the fire is knocked down and out. We shouldn’t be buying nozzles for their ability to perform this task because it’s secondary.”

“Did you know the asphalt machine is 12′ wide? If you see the seam in the road you got 24′ across – How wide is your truck? Jacks in; jacks out. Using the clues in your surroundings to be a great truck operator.”

“You don’t have to take an 8 hour class on reading smoke to know that when you arrive and there is grey smoke at the ceiling and then a few moments later there is dark brown smoke down to the floor you’re in deep doggy do-do!”

“Talking to guys in the crowd from DCFD about number of runs Gustin asks: ‘By the way what is the name of your fire department today? Well that must be GREAT for morale.’ ”

“It’s not just enough to bleed the line; you gotta open that bale all the way and make sure your gun is loaded.”

“Bill Gustin ‘You will never make it in todays fire service my friend, you have too much common sense.’ “

I am definitely planning on trying to make at least one day of AFTD next year. You should, too.

3.) Kentland Expectations

The guys of First Due Questions had the chance to stop in at Kentland 33 this week. They snapped a shot of a board displaying the “Expectations” of Kentland officers and firemen. They are universally applicable:

That’s all for this week. I’m slowly working out of my existential crisis and getting back into the swing of sarcasm. I may still throw up a personal post or two…bear with me. Thanks for reading.

Pete (Lt. Lemon)