From the Editor: October 2010

Our mission at Canadian Firefighter and EMS Quarterly (CFF) is to inform and educate. We are proud to play a key role in the intellectual cross pollination that happens in the fire service, where the great ideas, lessons learned and best practices shared through these pages help to strengthen other departments.

Technological advances have changed the way readers consume information. We are responding to those changes to meet your expectations and grow our magazine and online businesses.

And with that glossy introduction, we’re thrilled to welcome the magazine and online audiences of Firehall Magazine and Firehall.com to our already vibrant and far-reaching publishing and online operations. 

Our parent company, Annex Publishing & Printing Inc., over the summer bought the print and online versions of Firehall from its founder and longtime owner, Chris Leonard, to bolster our connection to rank-and-file members of the Canadian fire service. Both Firehall Magazine and Firehall.com had developed broad and loyal followings over the last 13 years and we’re honoured to have been invited to continue that tradition through our own national brands.

While we have absorbed Firehall Magazine into CFF, Firehall.com and its popular online forums will remain a hub for the Canadian fire service to engage in lively conversation about news and issues from vacation schedules to two-hatters to training and, of course, recruitment drives and job opportunities. 

The integration of Firehall.com has been, and will continue to be, an exciting challenge for our editorial and technical teams. For us, Firehall.com provides a gateway to new readers and viewers. We hope to hear from the legions of Firehall loyalists about what they want to read in CFF and their vision for the future of Firehall.com.

Our vision is to make Firehall.com the go-to resource for the Canadian fire service – to find out about training opportunities, events and fitness challenges, speaker series such as CFF-sponsored Firefighters Speak Up (www.firefightersspeakup.com), plus education and health and lifestyle information, all packaged in a familiar and user-friendly format.

We’re still getting to know our new Firehall readers and viewers and we’d like to learn more about what they want to see in the magazine and online. That’s why we’re introducing a new editorial advisory board for CFF and Firehall.com comprising a diverse group of firefighters I’ve met on visits to departments across Canada, including firefighters Courtney Poulson and Lee Juhaszi from Edmonton, firefighter/paramedic Scott Lane from Lethbridge, Alta., firefighter Kory Pearn from St. Thomas, Ont., and firefighter/paramedic Jay Shaw from Winnipeg (meet them at www.firehall.com or www.firefightingincanada.com) under About Us). Editorial advisory board members will suggest stories, offer guidance on content and help us find our way editorially on this new venture.

In the same way that firefighting technology must evolve to meet challenges posed by new building materials or updated fire and building codes, those who serve the fire service must evolve to meet the needs of their customers, clients, readers and viewers. For us, the acquisition of Firehall.com is another step in that direction following the development of our Fire Fighting in Canada website, our editor’s blog and our Facebook page. We’re excited about the challenges this will bring over the next year as we further embrace the challenge to serve our readership in new ways.