In the last few years Miami Dade Fire Rescue has lost so many firefighters in their prime, it’s hard to fathom. We are still reeling. It’s taken me a few days to process the loss of Maggie Lane, but I’ve come to feel her life defines her far more than her death. It’s Maggie’s life […]

Refugees who need emergency medical treatment on the shores of our country have left their families behind in search of a better life.  November 2015: The Mediterranean Syria is in the midst of civil war. More than three million Syrian refugees, many of them educated professionals, have fled their country with nothing but their children […]

“There are things that upset us. That’s not quite what we’re talking about here, though. I’m thinking rather about those images or words or ideas that drop like trapdoors beneath us, throwing us out of our safe, sane world into a place much more dark and less welcoming. Our hearts skip a ratatat drumbeat in […]

    “Black Hawks crossed the sky with Humvees dangling beneath like enormous steel spiders. A C17 took flight while inside intensely focused critical-care teams crisscrossed the plane’s leviathan belly. Young soldiers with rifles and a hundred pounds of gear on their bodies trotted for miles down a seemingly endless road. And there we were–a […]

Triple F–A Manifesto   Manifest discipline emotionally, professionally, morally and intellectually. Let your discipline be revealed in the way you dress, speak, walk, work, and comport yourself with co-workers and the public. Develop attention to detail. Start small and work up. Take pride in the little things. Kick ass on the big things.   Embrace compassion […]

Heroes Wear Haix     It didn’t take me long as a rookie firefighter to understand the importance of having good boots.  The blocky rubber boots issued in the academy and made for men felt like chunks of concrete on my feet, and as soon as I graduated to the field I invested in a […]

The Station Ready Rookie; Firefighter Preparation Beyond the State Skills Test is a slender gem of a book. Simple. Concise. Direct. And yet it is chockfull of wisdom and common sense. It lays out practices essential for anyone who wants to excel in the fire service. If firefighting is just a paycheck and an ego […]

I absolutely loved this book. Smokejumper by Jason A. Ramos and Julian Smith is a whip fast, fun, and fascinating read. It is also, at times, deeply sad. As a firefighter myself, I’ve always been intrigued by smokejumpers–the fittest and most elite of wildland firefighters. Not only do they parachute out of planes to get […]

  The fire service abounds in physical courage. Firefighters will walk into burning buildings, dive into frigid waters, and enter crack houses in the dead of night. Courage is a given. The physical kind, that is. We don’t even think about it much; it’s such a day to day part of our job. Toxic spills? […]

  It’s dark, hot, and the desert air feels unbelievably dry. Three A.M. in late September, and the temperature is still about 90 degrees. I’m already starting to breathe a little harder as I hop down off the second parapet wall on the roof of an old nightclub. I’m wearing and carrying 70 pounds of firefighting […]