If you could design the perfect fire station from scratch, what would it look like?

This week on The Cool Fireman Podcast, Matt, Brian, and Adam are designing their dream firehouse—and quickly realize there’s a lot more to fire station design than apparatus bays and a kitchen table.

Should administrative offices be separated from firefighter living quarters? Should every shift have its own refrigerator? Individual bunk rooms or good old-fashioned gen pop? How many bathrooms does a firehouse actually need? And perhaps the most important question of the episode: Is it acceptable to destroy the bathroom right before the crew brushes their teeth?

Yeah…we went there.

The guys also talk about designing modern fire stations for firefighter health, privacy, staffing, decontamination, female firefighters, hurricane upstaffing, turnout times, fitness rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, bunk rooms, and the traditions that make a firehouse feel like a firehouse.

We also highlight Paddling for Pennies, answer listener questions about firefighter interviews and getting hired, and revisit the conversation with Tonya Herbert about PAH exposure and firefighter cancer prevention—including why the engineer operating the pump may be exposed to more contaminants than many firefighters realize.

Some traditions are worth protecting. Others might be worth leaving in the 1970s.

What would YOUR perfect fire station have?

Join the conversation and follow The Cool Fireman Podcast wherever you listen.

🔥 Firefighter culture
🔥 Fire station design
🔥 Firefighter health & cancer prevention
🔥 Firefighter career advice
🔥 Firehouse traditions
🔥 And plenty of completely unnecessary bathroom discussion

If you could go back to the night before your very first day in the fire service and sit down with your younger self… what would you tell them?

Buckle up.

This week, Matt, Doug, and Unkie are going back in time and looking at their careers through the eyes of the firefighters they used to be.

Would we still become firefighters knowing everything we know now? What would our rookie selves think of the firefighters we became? What parts of the old fire service would we bring back? And what habits do we wish we'd started on DAY ONE?

The conversation gets deeper than we expected as we talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of the job—the camaraderie, friendships, incredible wins, trauma, mental health, taking care of yourself, and learning to give yourself a little grace along the way.

We also recap our trip to SAFRE in Raleigh, give some well-deserved shoutouts, read your comments in Snail Mail, revisit the biggest wastes of money in the fire service, and somehow end up talking about plastic straws, DEF systems, old-school fire engines, Bitcoin, and why you should always clean up after yourself at the firehouse.

Would we do it all over again?

Absolutely.

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What would YOU tell your rookie self?

#Firefighter #FireService #TheCoolFiremanPodcast

What Would You Buy With an Unlimited Fire Department Budget? 🚒💰

The Cool Fireman Podcast is LIVE from Raleigh, North Carolina at the South Atlantic Fire Rescue Expo (SAFRE)!

For the first time, the guys are all together at the booth, surrounded by fire apparatus, equipment, technology, and just about every possible way a fire department could spend money.

So we asked the obvious question:

If your department handed you an open checkbook, what are you buying?

Matt is looking at a high-tech command vehicle loaded with drone capabilities. Doug wants to strengthen the ladder truck fleet. Adam wants quality new engines and better reserves. Brian has his eyes on a rescue truck for his volunteer department.

But the conversation gets bigger than just buying cool stuff.

When does technology actually make firefighters safer and more efficient? When does it become overkill? Should departments spend money replacing apparatus, refurbishing what they already have, or investing in new technology? And how much should the individual needs of your community determine where that money goes?

We also get into apparatus replacement cycles, reserve fleets, preventive maintenance, drones, command vehicles, firefighter safety, department pride, retention, and why attending conferences like SAFRE can expose you to ideas you'd never see inside your own department.

And yes… we're recording live from the conference floor, so naturally there's plenty of chaos along the way.

Now it's your turn:

You're walking into SAFRE with an unlimited fire department checkbook.

What are you buying first?

Huge thanks to Unkie's Seasoning, Burn Box, and Operation Yellow Tape for supporting us at SAFRE.

Thanks for listening to The Cool Fireman Podcast!