The Fire Scene
John J. Salka, Jr.

Retired FDNY Battalion Chief John Salka will take a candid look at news and events impacting the fire service in this blog in the weeks between his monthly column "The Fire Scene" in Firehouse magazine.

  • Don't Relieve the Rapid Intervention Team
    by John J. Salka, Jr. - Thursday May 3, 2012
    When you establish a rapid intervention team (RIT) at an incident, they are there to perform a vital and technically challenging task. As we all know, a RIT need not ever be activated and if they are well trained and utilized, they will still have performed several important tasks. The title of this piece is "Don't Relieve the Rapid Intervention Team" and I suggest this for several reasons. First let's look at when you should relieve the RIT. When environmental conditions are severe, meaning extreme cold or heat, or any other condition that will wear down the ability of the RIT to react and operate immediately and at full effectiveness, they should be replaced or relieved. I strongly believe that should be the only reason to take a...

  • What Would You Do?
    by John J. Salka, Jr. - Friday April 13, 2012
    Have you seen the television show "What Would You Do?" The show creates situations that are controversial and politically incorrect to see how the bystanders and other innocent passersby handle what is happening. Obviously the test is who will step in or say something to the actors who are taking advantage of someone or treating someone unkindly. As I sat and watched the show it occurred to me that these same types of situations exist in the firehouse or at the emergency scene, and some of us step up and handle the situation and some of us don't. One of the most common firehouse situations is the firefighter that is dragging himself around the station from recliner to couch to lounge chair while the rest of the crew is doing the daily...

  • Mayday, Mayday, Mayday
    by John J. Salka, Jr. - Thursday March 1, 2012
    Much has been written about the term "Mayday" and how we in the fire service use it. Just recently I read an interesting article that discussed the causes for transmitting a Mayday, the hesitancy that many firefighters have for transmitting a Mayday and what we all should be doing when we hear a Mayday transmitted. What I am going to talk about here is just a small part of the mayday process but I believe it is also quite important to the effectiveness of a single mayday event. The first question I often ask when talking about the mayday procedure is what exactly do you, the firefighter in trouble, say when transmitting a real life Mayday? Now I know there are at least several acronyms out there that different organizations and...

  • Transitional Attack is Whack
    by John J. Salka, Jr. - Sunday February 19, 2012
    I'm amazed by the number of scientific studies that are calling for firefighters to change the way we are doing things. Now I may not be the sharpest tool in the box but have you read about this "Transitional Attack" idea? I hope I am stating this all correctly but this is what I'm hearing; Point #1- Have the first hoseline directed into the window of the involved room to slow down the fire, and don't worry, doing this will not push fire, heat and smoke into the other areas of the structure. NONSENSE! Yes it will! I don't care what the scientists discovered at their test fires, I have been to plenty of fires where a hoseline either deliberately or accidently or momentarily was directed into a window or down a hall or into a room...

  • My Friends
    by John J. Salka, Jr. - Monday January 30, 2012
    I'm heading up to Massachusetts tomorrow to visit some friends. Not just any friends, but a group of very special men. My trip will take me to Worcester, where on Dec. 3, 1999, at box 1438, six men lost their lives fighting a fire at the Worcester Cold Storage warehouse . I never met those men and I never will, but as things turned out I did meet some other firefighters from Worcester. I met Mike McNamee, Walter Giard, Andy White, Kevin Maloney, John Sullivan, John Daly, Joe Blanchard, Joe Gaffney, Paul LaRochele and many more. They were firefighter, company officers and chiefs. They all knew and loved and worked with the six men that were lost that day and they all stepped up and started something that is still happening today. They...