Fire Service Today

Star of Life

I ran across some information on www.ems.gov regarding the blue Star of Life and what it all means. I have been in EMS since 1992 and I dont that I have ever had it explained to me what it all meant. Now that I think of it I am sure that to some degree someone offered their rendition of what it meant, but I was able to find what it means from the government website www.ems.gov. Here is what it all means and if anyone else has some other interpretations please feel free to share them.

  

Adapted from the personal Medical Identification Symbol of the American Medical Association, each bar on the "Star of Life" represents one of six EMS functions. The functions include:

1. Detection, 2. Reporting, 3. Response, 4. On-Scene Care, 5. Care in Transit, 6. Transfer to Definitive Care.

 

The serpent and staff in the symbol portray the staff of Asclepius, an ancient Greek physician deified as the god of medicine. Overall, the staff represents medicine and healing, with the skin-shedding serpent being indicative of renewal.

Enjoy!

Ken Holland

Firewise on BlogTalkRadio

A recent "radio tour" for the Firewise program yielded a long interview with Andrea Harrison during her BlogTalkRadio show, Online With Andrea. Pull up a chair and maybe a headset and listen in our conversation, all about fire and the environment, wildfire preparation and safer homes and communities. Click here to start the recorded interview.

--Michele Steinberg

A Firewise Milestone: 500 communities take action

Last month, National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) celebrated its milestone achievement of surpassing 500 communities participating in its national Firewise Communities/USA Recognition Program. Working with state forestry organizations to provide the first step of risk assessment, NFPA's Firewise staff challenges neighborhoods to create an action plan to address their risks, conduct an annual Firewise Day, and invest at least $2 per capita annually in local wildfire risk reduction actions.

See which communities in your state have achieved national recognition and learn how your neighborhood can participate at www.firewise.org/usa.

--Michele Steinberg

Firewise Leaders of 2009

Seven individuals and organizations are recipients of the 2009 Firewise Leadership Award for outstanding efforts to reduce the loss of lives, property, and resources from wildfires. The awards recognize the most significant local efforts in forwarding the mission of NFPA’s National Firewise Communities Program, which encourages a collective approach to creating communities resistant to wildfire damage and destruction in wildland/urban interfaces, areas where homes are built close to or within forested areas.

Recipients of NFPA’s Firewise Leadership Awards were selected based on their impact at local, state-wide, and regional levels. Among the winners’ achievements include efforts encouraging homeowners to Firewise their properties, researching to better predict fire size and spread, educating children about wildfire safety and enhancing emergency response coordination.

Click here for the full press release and to learn more about the winners.

--Michele Steinberg

Christmas Tree Safety

Here is a demonstration showing how flammable a dry Christmas tree can be as opposed to a tree that is watered regularly. This test was conducted by the National Fire Protection Association and Underwriters Laboratories. For more information.

And of course the classic NIST video makes the point as well: be careful.

Wildfire losses top the charts

For the fifth time in the past 10 years, the largest loss associated with fires and explosions occurred in wildlands, and for the second year in a row, it happened in Southern California, according to the newly released National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) report Large-loss fires in the United States-2008 (PDF, 159 KB). The report appears in the latest issue of NFPA Journal®, the official magazine of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). Read the full press release here.

--Michele Steinberg

Epi Pen Auto Injector

I was recently in my Paramedic Refresher class and I did actually learn something new which made me start to wonder about several things. I am an "old school" medic, at least by today's standards as I have been a medic since 1996. I learned that in the state of Massachusetts they are removing from the trucks the single dose vials of epi 1:1000 and now only the epi-pen auto injectors are to be used, at all EMS levels, instead of the medic drawing up the epi from the single dose vial. I can only imagine why this has happened, and I have my opinions which I will refrain from sharing, but I am wondering what others might think about this. This is obviously in the case of an allergic reaction when one would use the epi to treat this condition, and not in the event of cardiac arrest.

So anyone have any thoughts or opinions they want to share?

Ken Holland

December Podcast - NFPA 1600

Want to know more about NFPA 1600, Standard on Disaster/Emergency Management and Business Continuity?

In this month's podcast, NFPA talks with Don Schmidt, Chair of the Technical Committee on Emergency Management and Business Continuity about the development of NFPA 1600, federal initiatives, and efforts to ensure that this important standard remains an integral part of the nation's preparedness plans.

Dave Trebisacci