Take a Peek - Link Dump 1

Being on vacation gave me a lot of time to think about a lot of things. Some of what came to mind was ways to keep this site going strong, to inform the Roanoke Firefighters, but more importantly to keep increasing my readership among outsiders. Mostly this occurs when the blog shows up during searches, but word of mouth works too. I find it interesting the more and more hits I get from email messages.

What came to mind mostly was interesting stories, viewpoints, and issues that I would like to hit on. More and more of the issues affecting my department are coming to the surface in other departments. Some issues are more of a priority in different parts of the Nation. The main keywords that continue to surface are pay, morale, pension, benefits, insurance, retirement, and hiring. I will continue to find and uncover articles of what other firefighters, departments, and localities are going through (the good and the bad).

Here are some stories summarized. Click on the bold links for the stories.

Chesapeake Fire has gold leafed certain donors names on the back end of Squad 15. The donors helped properly equip the truck to handle emergencies.

Remember when you got hired on at the FD, well so does Sean Brooks. Unfortunately, Sean was laid off only 3 months after being hired. I just hope that the budget cuts that cost Sean his job don't come at the cost of someone's life.

FireRehab.com is a new site dedicated to the importance of proper rehab at the fire scene and in other situations. Check it out, you might learn something.

I don't know how many fire photographers there are out there, but FireRescue has a wildland firefighter photo contest. The deadline is August 18th.

The NFPA has come out with an interesting study pointing to the increase in firefighter deaths during training.

Will Roanoke City Council Meetings reach this point? God I hope not.

Thanks to Local 29 for the link.
Remember the Station Night Club Fire? How could you forget it. Possibly one of the worst fires in the past 100 years. I found a blog related to it. It might not be up to date, but check it out.

I think that I might do this type of thing more often. Consider it a link dump. If you see anything catchy, funny, or interesting and would like to see me post it just send it to me.