Firefighter Sims

There are some great interactive site for kids related to firefighters. Here is a list of a few of my favorites.


Scholastic Firefighter Community Club
http://teacher.scholastic.com/commclub/firefighter/
You can input up to 25 names and print Junior Firefighter badges for students.  There is also an interactive learning quiz and a teacher's guide.
Smokey Bear
http://www.smokeybear.com
Smokey Bear has his own website. Kids can play action-packed campfire games such as Put Out the Fire and Smokey's Trail Blaze. They will also learn tips for fire prevention and campfire fun.
Sparky's Homepage
http://www.nfpa.org/sparky/
Kids can tour Sparky the Firedog's website, which is packed with safety-related tips, crafts, and games all especially for kids. Kids will love to hear a real fire bell in the truck photo gallery. There are also instructions on how to make an origami Sparky puppet.Help Sparky get from classroom to playground in a mock fire drill.
U.S. Fire Administration's Kids' Page
http://www.usfa.fema.gov/kids/
Kids can become a junior fire marshal on this website designed just for kids. Children learn about safety and then take quizzes and play games to test their understanding. Have fun learning about safety by checking out Hydro's Hazard House.

Many departments have a roof prop available at their training grounds, but it is not always convenient to use.   It's nice to have something compact available at the station that can be used for practice.  The guys are always asking me to help them build something and I have found several sites that have some good pictures and diagrams which can be used to help build your own roof training prop.

Fire Engineering has some good articles with photos.  Here are some good links listed below:

Adjustable Roof Prop

Ventilation Prop

There are also quite a few posts out there regarding roof props on the fireengineering.com forums.

Some more pictures of three different props at the DCFD training facility are posted at www.vententersearch.com

For a variety of pictures of inexpensive training props, you can check out this document from the Indiana Dept of Homeland Security. It contains close up pictures and estimated costs to build.

I wanted to let everyone know about a new photo site I am working on. I was trying to think of a really great way for firefighters to share their pictures. I am not super high tech yet so I am working on a blog and pulling pictures from across the web that I really like. The new website I am working on is called firefighterphotos.com.

I thought is was a great name and also found a pretty good looking blog template. Right now I am pulling in photos from across the web that allow sharing (creative commons) and posting them. The only problem is that most of the photo sites do not have any stories that relate to the photos. I would really like to be able to get some great stories to also post. If anyone is looking to share some pictures or looking to get some backlinks for their fire blog or department page, send me a line. If you have some picture that you are the owner of just email me and I will post and hook you up with a link on my page to your site. Right now I only would like to link to fire or ems related sites.

If you have time check out the site so far (I still need a lot more pictures) and post a comment if you have any suggestions. Thanks everyone!

Fire-Rescue International will be held this year at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta from August 23-27. Exhibits will run from August 26-27. FRI is a great way to network with other departments and to find out about new products and technology.

The FRI Expo will be open on Friday from 10:30-17:00 and Saturday from 10:00 to 16:00. This is where you can see new product launches and check out the latest upgrades to current equipment. There will be a Technology Pavilion and a Health and Wellness Pavilion.

Co-located events include the National Society of Executive Fire Officer's annual Leadership Conference on Tuesday the 23rd through Thursday the 25th and the National Association of Hispanic Firefighters (NAHF) annual conference and business meeting which starts on Wednesday the 24th.

A full range of training events are also scheduled during the event. For more information about the expo, training opportunities, and registration go to the FRI 2011 site.