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AFSO21's Weekend Wrap-up Podcast
Top-rated fire and emergency services podcast! Host Kevin Ferrara delivers expert insights on leadership and tactics from the academy to command post.
Episodes
14 episodes
The Leadership Deficit: How Poor Management is Emptying Emergency Services
The Invisible Killer: Why "Clear Air" is a Lie On The Fireground
Clear visibility after knockdown is one of the most dangerous comfort signals on the fireground. When the smoke thins, it’s easy to believe the hazard is over and to start treating overhaul like “cleanup” instead of an exposure-heavy operation....
The Hidden Dangers of PFAS: Could "Forever Chemicals" Be Fueling your Anger?
Your fuse feels shorter than it used to and you can’t quite explain why. Before we blame it all on social media, sleep debt, or “the times we’re living in,” we take a hard look at a quieter force that may be shaping mood from the inside out: PF...
The Thinning Red Line
Smell smoke in a big city and a career crew is at your door in minutes. In huge stretches of rural America, that same 911 call wakes up volunteers who have to drive to the station, wait for enough people to safely staff a truck, and then head y...
The Glass Station: Transparency and Accountability in Fire & Emergency Services
Trust is the real life safety system, and when it fails, everything else starts to break. Host Kevin Ferrara makes a direct case for why transparency and accountability matter more in fire and EMS than they ever will in a boardroom. We talk abo...
Comedy As a Fireground Coping Tool
A lot of people hear “firefighter humor” and assume it’s just jokes for likes. What we see up close is something deeper: comedy can be a pressure valve that helps first responders process stress, stay connected to their crews, and keep showing ...
Firefighter Survival Starts With Us with Guest Chief Billy Goldfeder
You can’t control every hazard in this job, but you can control more than you think and pretending otherwise is costing firefighters their health and their lives. We’re joined by Chief Billy Goldfeder for a candid, straight-talk conversation ab...
Health & Wellness in Fire & Emergency Services
The fire service is full of people who will sprint toward danger without hesitation, but we rarely talk about what the job quietly takes from us over 20 or 30 years. Host Kevin Ferrara dives into the culture of wellness in fire and rescue, and ...
PFAS In Turnout Gear with Guest Dr. Graham Peaslee
Turnout gear is supposed to be the last line of defense, so what happens when the fabric itself contains PFAS forever chemicals that were never clearly disclosed? This week, we pulled a crucial interview from our archives with Dr. Graham Peasle...
EMS Is Community Medicine with Guest Paramedic Justin Whitney
Calling EMS “ambulance drivers” sounds small, but it exposes a huge gap in how the public and even parts of healthcare understand prehospital medicine. We sit down with Pennsylvania Paramedic Justin Whitney during National EMS Week to get speci...
The EMS Officer 1
Fire calls may have built the modern fire service, but EMS calls now define it and that demands a different kind of leader. We walk through why the EMS Officer 1 is not a “nice to have” title, but a practical response to how fire based EMS real...
Is Your Station Staffed by Science or Just Habit?
NFPA 1750 is here, and it's an earthquake for the fire service. Are you prepared for the radical transparency it demands, or are you still relying on "tribal knowledge" that’s about to put your department on the wrong side of a legal liability ...
Beyond the Stats: A Decade of Research into the Fire Service’s Biggest Killer
The podcast episode details the generational crisis of occupational cancer among firefighters and the cultural shift required to address it.The key points include:Cultural Shift: The traditional image of the "salty" ve...
