by Fred R. LaPoint, Fire Chief Paramedic | Jul 17, 2026 | Behind The Alarm
A reader asked me a question this week that I wish more people would ask: what about the cattle? What about the animals in all this smoke? Is the danger over when the smoke clears? Her instinct was that it had to be just as hard on them — she just didn’t know. And...
by Fred R. LaPoint, Fire Chief Paramedic | Jul 17, 2026 | Behind The Alarm
By Fred R. LaPoint, Fire ChiefEvery firefighter learns early that fire is not your enemy. That surprises people outside the service, so let me say it plainly for the folks reading this who’ve never pulled a line: fire is a tool and a force, older than any of us, and...
by Fred R. LaPoint, Fire Chief Paramedic | Jul 16, 2026 | Behind The Alarm
BEHIND THE ALARMStraight Talk from the Fire ServiceFifty years on the fireground teaches your nose things. When I walked outside yesterday and this morning, I didn’t need an app to tell me what I was breathing. It smells exactly like the perimeter of a working fire or...
by Fred R. LaPoint, Fire Chief Paramedic | Jul 6, 2026 | Behind The Alarm
By Fred R. LaPoint • Fire Chief, Stronach Township Fire Department • Team Rubicon Disaster ResponderAs I write this, the Aspen Acres Fire southwest of Pueblo, Colorado has grown to roughly 87,000 acres — the eighth-largest wildfire in that state’s history — and it has...
by Fred R. LaPoint, Fire Chief Paramedic | Jul 5, 2026 | Behind The Alarm
Image Credit to FirenuzzleA fellow firefighter page, FireNuzzle, put out a post this week that stopped me cold with how simple and how true it was. It answered a question the public asks at nearly every fire: “Why did the fire truck run out of water?”The honest answer...
