Month: January 2026
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Who’s Actually in Charge When Things Go Sideways?
Maritime incidents have a distinctive way of exposing uncertainty more quickly than a lot of other public safety missions. When conditions deteriorate, information remains incomplete, and multiple agencies converge on the same stretch of water, a familiar question often emerges, (sometimes unspoken, sometimes asked aloud)… Who, exactly, is in charge here? On paper, the answer…
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From Shoreline to Scene: The New Reality of Maritime Search and Rescue
Maritime search and rescue (SAR) can seem as if it lives on the fringes of public safety…something that happens “out there,” handled by somebody else, on someone else’s water. In reality, maritime SAR has quietly become one of the most complex, interdependent missions facing local first responder agencies today…and one of the most unforgiving when…
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At the Water’s Edge: Preparing the Fire Service for the Modern Maritime Mission
For much of the fire service’s history, water represented a boundary – a feature of the landscape that shaped jurisdictional lines but rarely defined operational identity. Fires happened on land. Emergencies happened on roads and in buildings. The maritime domain, when it entered the conversation at all, was often viewed as the responsibility of federal…
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Training at a Crossroads: Why Having a Standard Matters
This weekend, while reading about another court proceeding connected to the Uvalde tragedy, my thoughts drifted back to the Department of Justice’s Critical Incident Review, released in January 2024. In 2024, almost any time I spoke at a conference or event, I talked about this review. At more than 600 pages, the report is exhaustive,…
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