What CRACKYL is
CRACKYL is built around a simple idea: firefighters deserve media that treats them like whole people, not just professionals in turnout gear.
Since 2020 we’ve published a quarterly print and digital magazine, built a growing website, and launched a mobile app — one platform focused on the things that actually shape a firefighter’s life. Health. Mental wellness. Money. Relationships. Fitness. Career. The stuff that follows you home after the shift ends.
We’re not a trade publication. We don’t cover tactics or apparatus specs. We cover the person inside the gear — and everything that keeps them strong enough to keep showing up.
Why “CRACKYL”
The name comes from the sound every firefighter knows — the crackle of a working fire. In the middle of smoke and chaos, that sound is strangely grounding. It’s familiar. It reminds you why you’re there.
The spelling is deliberate too. The Y mirrors the shape of an antibody — the body’s first line of defense. That’s what CRACKYL aims to be: a resource that builds resilience, physical and mental, so firefighters are stronger against everything the profession throws at them.
The story behind it
In 2016, CRACKYL founder Kory Pearn was hospitalized with a life-threatening heart condition. He’d been ignoring the symptoms for years — pushing through, the way the job teaches you to.
Lying in that hospital bed, he saw it clearly for the first time: the culture that made him a good firefighter was the same culture that nearly put him in the ground. The relentless pursuit of perfection. The refusal to admit weakness. The unspoken rule that the person doing the rescuing doesn’t get to need rescuing.
“What we aren’t changing, we’re choosing — not just as individuals, but as the fire service collectively.”
A career firefighter and captain with more than two decades on the job, Kory launched CRACKYL in 2020 to fill the gap he’d fallen into himself: media that helps firefighters pursue health, balance, and growth without giving up who they are.
By the numbers
- 20+Print and digital editions published since 2020
- 1.3MFirefighters across North America in our addressable audience
- 48KEmail subscribers
- FDNYCRACKYL is in every fire station in New York City
- 2022Year our department subscription program launched
- 5+Partnerships including the IAFC, IAFF, NVFC, and the Leary Foundation
Keep going
The magazine, the website, and the app work as one platform. Get CRACKYL for iOS or Android, or start with the print magazine at your door.
- Subscribe — four print issues a year, plus the digital archive.
- Contribute — pitch a story or send us your photos.
- Advertise — put your brand in front of the fire service.
- Advisory Board — the people keeping us honest.