Fire Officers Guide To Emergency Response

01/02/2026

This search and rescue procedure is missing a can to suppress fire. Professional Firefighters need to bring the tools required to protect themselves and the occupants they are searching for during a search and a water can is missing from the equation in this UL clip.

10/12/2025

Why would any organization that identifies itself as being safety conscious promote the notion that you can be a "Battery Safety Expert"?? Didn't someone just die in a Tesla because the battery operated door locks - locked them inside of the car as it burned? Oh sorry while it was in THERMAL RUN-A-WAY!! I think the only part of that sentence that makes sense is:
RUN-A-WAY!!

Did you Take C.H.A.R.G.E. of Battery Safety in your community this week? Share your photos/videos and tag us! The new toolkit stickers are 🔥

09/21/2025

When it comes to Fire Department Strategy and Tactics which of the 2 do you identify mostly with Leadership?
If Strategy = Leadership reply: 1
If Tactics = Leadership reply: 2

04/10/2024

Why would anyone attend a firefighter boot camp led by an institution that has Zero responsibility or liability for the health and safety of firefighters?

04/03/2024

Keep in mind that there are no subject matter experts when it comes to Lithium Ion fires. If there were there would not be a need for the many webinars, pod casts, live burns and classroom trainings on EV fires. We still don’t know how to put them out and claiming to be the expert in the room just because you agree with the “let it burn” method doesn’t make you an expert. It makes you a parrot.

Join us for this webinar to hear from subject matter experts on the key concepts to consider when developing community risk reduction and response plans around lithium-ion battery fires.

03/27/2024

So instead of banning dangerous battery technology from making it to consumers we have the federal government pouring billions of our tax dollars into showing us how to survive the disaster. Notice that UL never commits to assigning a classification to the Lithium battery fire. Just use a lot of water (Class A extinguishing agent) and cover it with a reusable fire blanket that’s loaded with toxic HF. Last I checked NFPA Standard 10 considerers energized electrical equipment as a class C fire. Also Lithium is a heavy metal and should be classified as a Class D combustible metal fire. Where’s the research on the effectiveness of Class C and D extinguishing agents on Lithium ion battery fires? UL is taking enough federal grant money to look into this fire problem. Why are their research methods so inconsistent with the NFPA standards that fire departments follow with respect to all other fires?
Follow the money.
Chief Hughes
Battalion 1 (retired)
Chicago FD

Join FSRI for on Monday, April 29 for "Leading the Way With Research: Lithium-Ion Battery Safety, the New NERIS, and Risk Mitigation" to learn about the Take C.H.A.R.G.E. of Battery Safety initiative; progress on U.S. Fire Administration's new data collection system, ; and vital research being conducted by the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety - IBHS. For this panel discussion, FSRI team members Adam Barowy, Tom Jenkins, and Zoe Susice will be joined by Chief John Morrison and Dr. Ian Giammanco, PhD. Learn more and register here: https://lnkd.in/eqGRbG5q

03/25/2024

If they are suppressing toxins then why is the firefighter not wearing his SCBA?

02/22/2024

Why can’t State and local fire academies teach fundamentals to their own firefighters? UL is taking Federal grant money away from FD’s that need to train in house on basic and advanced fire ops. Must EVERYTHING in this country be outsourced to serve the profit motives of the middle-man? AFG money is meant to be used by Fire Departments not private institutions that have no liability with respect to the sometimes tragic outcomes at real world incidents. It’s gotten to the point that management doesn’t listen to Battalion Chiefs unless they are on loan from UL. Does UL attend LODD funerals? Does UL inform next of kin after a firefighter duty death? The Battalion Chief that has a LODD in his/her Battalion usually spends time with LODD families before during and after the funeral. I never saw a UL rep take these duties and responsibilities on at any of the LODD funerals that I’ve attended. The grief stricken family members have tough questions and it’s not always easy to get through that from what a colleague told me. You can’t use excuses like bad training when your own Fire Department neglects to take full responsibility for everything they train on because quite often all our training academy tells us to do it to “click the UL link, it’s all there.”
If only this was true.
Chief Hughes
Battalion 1 (retired)
Chicago FD

02/22/2024

I like revolutions.

🔥🔥🔥🚒🚒🚒🚨🚨🚨
RFT 2024 Call for Presenters is now open!

We already have some amazing classes lined up for this year and we are looking for some more top shelf instructors to join us. If you would like the opportunity to present at RFT 2024, complete the application no later than March 18, 2024 at 5:00pm CST.
Click the link below to apply!
https://laketactics.wufoo.com/forms/rfz92uc0xzza5n/

02/17/2024

The problem that I have with letting UL take the lead on solving the lithium ion fire problem is that they have a financial interest that caters to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) when it comes to choosing the research methods they use for determining best practices. For example, UL FSRI has never tested the success or failure of wetting agents found in Class A fire stream applications when conducting test burns on Lithium ion battery fires. Independent research indicates that the use and application of Class A structural firefighting foam causes a rapid decrease in the ppm of VOC and PAH found in smoke and fire gasses. Post fire results conducted by Assistant Chief Gary Baum (Reddick IL FD) for his applied research project for the National
fire Academy executive fire officer program proved that applying Class A foam to fires reduced the IDLH of Benzene to Zero ppm. Conversely, his research proved that the ppm of Benzene increased when water was applied to the same fire and maintained an IDLH atmosphere.
Chief Baum handed his 130 page research to Dr. Gavin Horn from the UL FSRI team over a year ago. When Dr. Steve Kerber was asked the question: Why don’t you research the use of firefighting foam at UL FSRI, he said he would be happy to research foam if you pay us.
To be clear, UL FSRI accepts Federal Fire Grant money from DHS called Assistance to Firefighters grants (AFG). Doesn’t this mean that UL is already being paid to research EVERYTHING the fire service has at its disposal to extinguish fires? I’d say it does.