The Story of The Bravest Online

The Bravest Online.com was founded in 2004 by Chris David, a college student studying television production at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. David, who was also a volunteer firefighter in Spring, Texas had a passion for the fire service and cameras. Once David took his first few fire photos he was hooked. "I didn't know people wanted to see video and photos of things burning until after I filmed a working fire," David Says.  According to David he never thought his website would grow any further than just friends and family, "I started getting emails and phone calls from friends wanting copies of fires I had videoed. I finally got so fed up with people asking for copies that I decided to start a small web page for the videos and photos I took."

The website slowly began to progress as did David's website ability and his camera work. He soon purchased newer and nicer equipment out of his own savings to provide better quality work for his viewers. David started listening and responding to more and more incidents and working his camera. David said soon his marketing minor started kicking in, "I realized I was on to something, people wanted to see what I was doing and with the popularity of video and the Internet more and more people were coming to the site." David soon started selling advertising space in order to upgrade more equipment and offer contest money for user-submitted videos. David, "I will never ever charge a firefighter anything to view my work, it's all there for free and always will be, I'll let the advertisers cover my costs." Most recently David had the entire website reworked and launched a new professional look and feel. The Bravest Online just recently started releasing DVD's for firefighter to use in training classes. David said it was a shock when Firehouse the magazine called him, David explains, "When Firehouse called ME, I was shocked. They wanted to interview me regarding the site, the new DVD, and who I was. The next day was even crazier when Fire Engineering called, and two days later I was on Houston's news for a story I shot, It all happened in a week's time. We had 90,000 hits in one day!"

The Bravest Online.com has since grown into a large project grossing nearly  10,000-20,000 visitors a day, hundreds of submissions, and tons of publicity in the fire service. David, "I have got phone calls, emails, and compliments from distinguished firefighters ALL over the world." David says he feels honored to be where he is today, but says it's all come with hard work, "I used to be the only one who looked at my site, now I over hear people in fire stations everywhere talking about the latest video."

Chris David and The Bravest Online aren't giving up anytime soon. David says the site has a big future and will only be getting better from here.

If you would like more information about The Bravest Online.com or Chris David please email the staff at thebravestonline@gmail.coom