situational awareness

Fighting Fires on Main Street – Part 2 (Episode 254)

This episode is part 2 of a 2-part interview with Elyria Fire Department Assistant Chief, Joe Pronesti, talking about the unique challenges we face when fighting fires in legacy-era, Main Street structures, ie: Main Street Fire! Length: 42 minutes   Click the YouTube icon to watch the full VIDEO     __________________________________________________ If you are […]

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Information Overload!

Understanding Stress – Part 7: Information Overload

Welcome to Part 7 of my series on stress and its impact on situational awareness. I appreciate all the very nice comments I have received by email, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Keep them coming. Your messages inspire and motivate me more than you can ever imagine. Thank you so much! In the previous segment I

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Main Street Fire

Fighting Fires on Main Street – Part 1 (Episode 253)

This episode is part 1 of a 2-part interview with Elyria Fire Department Assistant Chief, Joe Pronesti, talking about the unique challenges we face when fighting fires in legacy-era, Main Street structures, ie: Main Street Fire! Length: 42 minutes   Click the YouTube icon to watch the full VIDEO     __________________________________________________ If you are

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Assumed Risk V. Created Risk (Episode 252)

This episode is an interview with Dr. Burt Clark, discussing the notion of first responders who assume risk versus first responders who create risk. The discussion addresses a number of safety topics important to first responders. Length: 76 minutes   Click the YouTube icon to watch the full VIDEO     __________________________________________________ If you are

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Backdraft and Mayday! – Part 3 (Episode 251)

This episode is part 3 of a 3-part interview with the incident commander from the German Township Fire Department who was in charge of a residential dwelling fire where a backdraft occurred followed by a Mayday call. Length: 62 minutes         Click the YouTube icon to watch the full VIDEO    

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Understanding Stress – Part 4: Hyper Vigilance

Welcome to part four of the series on understanding stress. In the first three segments I talked about the various kinds of stress people in high risk jobs can experience. For seasoned veterans, the information shared likely served as a good review. For newer members, it may have alerted you to the stressors that may

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Backdraft and Mayday! – Part 2 (Episode 250)

This episode is part 2 of a 3-part interview with the incident commander from the German Township Fire Department who was in charge of a residential dwelling fire where a backdraft occurred followed by a Mayday call. Length: 40 minutes     Click the YouTube icon to watch the full VIDEO     __________________________________________________ If

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Understanding Stress – Part 3: Some stress is good

Stress. Who needs it?! The fact is, we all need it! Welcome to part 3 of my series on stress. In part 2 I discussed three kinds of bad stress: Acute stress, episodic acute stress and chronic stress. Each of them triggered by different things. In some instances the impact is short-lived. In other instances,

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Backdraft and Mayday! – Part 1 (Episode 249)

This episode is part 1 of a 3-part interview with the incident commander from the German Township Fire Department who was in charge of a residential dwelling fire where a backdraft occurred followed by a Mayday call. Length: 67 minutes     Click the YouTube icon to watch the full VIDEO     __________________________________________________ If

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Understanding Stress – Part 2: Types of stress

Welcome to Part 2 of my series on stress. The goal of this segment is to discuss three types of stress: Acute stress, episodic acute stress and chronic stress. Anyone on an emergency scene can, and often do, experience all three. Stress can impact  situational awareness and, equally concerning, stress can have devastating long-term impacts.

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