Street Smart Firefighting: The Common Sense Guide to Firefighter Safety And Survival

by Robert C. Bingham

Street Smart Firefighting shows a collection of actual fireground successes and mistakes (and the lessons learned), and gives firefighters everywhere the opportunity to grow, learn and improve.

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 30, 2005

Reviews

[Kris Schnee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not a fireman, so I can't judge this for technical accuracy, but it's certainly interesting and it's approachable for a layman. There are vivid stories in here about what the life of a fireman is like, from the ongoing disputes about how to run things to what it's like in a true emergency. The book is also interesting for its focus on management: not "spray water like this, not that", but "here's how to run an organization that deals with deadly threats on a regular basis while minimizing risk and maintaining a useful command structure that supports the team".

My main gripes are that at least in the Kindle edition, there are some odd errors like a stretch (around location 2000 if I recall) where a lot of text gets randomly repeated. Even where there's no actual error it seems like a lot of points get repeated to excess. Still, I recommend this book even to people not specifically interested in firefighting.

[Steven Medina · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my first fire chiefs gave me this book after he retired from being chief. There is some good information for firefighters and fire officers in this book. A little
Bit of everything is just what you need sometimes.

[Ronald Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

Could use some updates with NIMS and What we have learned from UL and NIST studies.

[Jason Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! Down to earth, basic and informative. I could easily see this becoming required reading in drill schools everywhere.