Copper State Firemen Podcast
Copper State Firemen
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Podcast for Firemen burning the ships of Complacency, Laziness, and Excuses. We are promoting love and passion for the job, encouraging eagerness, and mastering the craft of the Fire Service!
The information, opinions, values, recommendations, and ideas are of the host and individuals on this podcast, and are not affiliated or endorsed by the fire department, organization, or companies the individuals works for. This podcast is for general information only! Indorced by Copper State Fools and Solid Fondation team LLC.
Copper State Firemen Podcast
Leadership, Training, and Team Culture in the Fire Service
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Captain Noah Katz, a seasoned veteran with 12 years in the American Fire Service, shares his profound insights on leadership and training. Discover why assessing "searchable space" is more reliable than survivability profiling and how early mentors shaped his leadership style. Noah explains the importance of leading by example, setting clear expectations, and fostering a cohesive and respectful team culture, all crucial for developing effective firefighting teams.
Explore the challenges of training modern recruits amidst societal shifts in attitudes towards authority. Noah discusses the delicate balance of applying necessary pressure while adapting communication styles to ensure optimal performance in high-stakes situations. From his experiences, he underscores the significance of understanding diverse backgrounds to motivate and guide new firefighters, ultimately bridging generational gaps and enhancing team efficiency through potential standardized national training systems.
Celebrate the camaraderie and shared passion within the firefighting community as Noah recounts his transformative experiences with the Georgia Smoke Diver program and the founding of Priority Fire Training. Delve into the narrative of building trust, empowering young firefighters, and emphasizing evidence-based practices. Noah's stories illustrate the profound bonds formed in the fire service and the ongoing commitment to learning, adaptation, and continuous improvement, ensuring both personal growth and the safety of communities served.
um, searchable space. So a lot of people, you know, do the whole survivability profiling thing, which I am 100 against, because I think that's completely wrong. Like you can't, like, like I just don't think we can look at a building and be like, yeah man, somebody's alive, and like you have no freaking idea what's going on there. And you see people that survive, uh, search fires that you pulled up and you're like dude, I didn't see one inch of building that wasn't covered in fire. Like how are they alive? Versus, going to you know a fire where it's like a room of contents fire and somebody's down the hall and they're incapacitated and they don't make it out Right, so like everybody's different because of that and so we can't profile anybody based on that. But what we can profile is can we search it? And to me that's hey, man, can I occupy the space with my, my training, my experience and my ppe, and if I have those three things in place, then I'm going to assess my risk properly and I'm going to make a good decision welcome everybody.
Speaker 2:Copper state fireman podcast. This podcast is for firemen, burning the ships of complacency, laziness and excuses. We're promoting love and passion for the job, encouraging eagerness and mastering the craft of the fire service. Values, recommendations and ideas are the hosts and individuals of this podcast and are not affiliated or endorsed by the fire departments, organization or companies. The individuals work for this podcast is for general information use only. Brought to you by the Copper State Fools and sponsored by Solid Foundation Team LLC. Let's go All right, everybody, welcome back.
Speaker 2:I have the privilege to sit down with Noah Katz. He's got 12 years in the American Fire Service. Current rank is he's a captain. He's proud of the fact that he's been assigned to the busiest stations his entire career. He's also been a local 493 union executive board member for nine years, including being the director of training chair for Phoenix Firefighter Symposium. Adjunct instructor at Paradise Valley Community College for the fire one and two program, he has designed and implemented department-wide training for over 1800 members on forcible entry hose line management, order application and search techniques. He's also the number one first graduate in the state of Arizona from the Georgia Smoke Divers. He's been a national and international instructor and he's a founder and co-owner of Priority Fire Training. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. Welcome, captain Noah Katz. So, captain Katz, thank you so much for being on the show. Brother, how are you doing tonight?
Speaker 1:I'm good. Thank you, steve, absolutely honored to be having a conversation with you and looking forward to diving into it and seeing where it goes.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So we're sitting down tonight so I really want to get into. I mean, you've been did your intro, so you've been instructing around the world, right, you have very good and amazing leadership techniques and really a mentality behind it. So let's just start there. So let's start on your leadership. So you're a captain in the American Fire Service now, right. So arguably, what a lot of guys will say the most influential position in the fire service that right front seat. So, with that responsibility, how do you take your leadership modalities or your ideology?
Speaker 1:just walk the audience through what you believe is a good suppression officer leadership style? Yeah, absolutely, man. I think it's a great question and obviously I think a lot of leadership in the fire service is molded by how you came up. You know some of the leaders that you were around when you got on the job, through the academy, your art, your crew training officers maybe they were your probationary captains. That's certainly true for me. I had a captain who I worked for my second rotation when I was on probation and kind of paved that path for me, because when I arrived there he was immediately like hey, man, this is what happens here. We are going to come in early, we're going to clean the trucks, we're going to eat breakfast together, we're going to go train, we're going to cook both meals, we're going to work out together in the afternoon, we're going to play cards at night and we're going to run calls, and that is what's going to happen every single day here. And so for me, like that really set the stage to kind of be like hey, man, like this is just how it should be. You know, and I, and I think you know, unfortunately, um, a lot of times in the fire service. People don't look at things like that. They they think that you know, calls are a burden to them. Um, there might be, you know, some other ideas of what's more important, like, hey man, if we don't eat at 12 o'clock and six o'clock, then you know something's wrong with this station. It's like, dude, I personally don't care when we eat, and so that's just not a thing to me. It's like, hey man, you have to set expectations for your crew and you have set expectations for yourself, and I think those are not you rolling with an iron fist. I think those are a lot of times expectations that need to be set and discussed and agreed upon. And so you know, that's kind of transitioned over time or grown over time.
Speaker 1:It's certainly for me and my leadership style, you know, when I first became captain I was fortunate to be assigned to a company right away. It was a little bit of a transitional time there that the driver there had been there for a couple years, the backseat firefighter had been there about a month or so before me, with a probationary firefighter there, and we have two guys on the rescue there in the ambulance so, and so it's kind of a transitional period as far as guys coming and going there. So it was an opportunity to really set some some ground rules for what I wanted it to be. And so we sat down and we kind of discussed like, hey, man, like what are things that are important to us? Why are these things important? And I always go back to that because I think a lot of times in leadership people are very quick to say, well, hey, man, you know I outrank you. Or hey, I'm teaching this class. Or hey, you, you're asking me for advice, well, I'm going to tell you how it should be, instead of really discussing why we should be doing these things or involving everybody in those things. And so to me, you know, it's not just rolling with iron fist, you have to involve people.
Speaker 1:And so what I found is that, by setting these expectations at the station, really made everybody included. But then it creates this buy in, when people are bought into idea like they will do anything to make it, make it possible. And that's really where the where the magic happens at the fire, firehouse, because people are bought into to the mission. Mission is always the most important thing. And so when we talk about what are the things that are important, you know I'd always start with things that are important to me and that's, you know, at the station and even when I'm teaching, I always, I always try to bring personal examples into the things that we're discussing or that we're teaching, because I think people can kind of relate to that stuff and they need to see that you're human too crew continuity and things like that.
Speaker 2:Obviously we're not talking about who's grabbing the irons, who's grabbing knobs, stuff like that. But so what are your expectations? What's those super important things to you?
Speaker 1:well, quite honestly, man, I mean I guess I can break it down like this pretty easily it's like I have the same expectation for everyone on my crew, including myself, and I think that's really important. You can't have different expectations for different people, right? The expectation needs to be the same across the board. And the only really to me, the way that we set expectations is that we set metrics for expectations, because to say like, hey, man, I want you to have a good attitude every day, well, that's kind of like an objective response, right. Like, maybe one day I'm like, yeah, steve, you got a great attitude. Maybe the next day something's a little bit off with you and you think you have a good attitude, but I don't think so. So it's really hard to have metrics like that, right?
Speaker 1:So what we sat down and did as a crew is we set metrics for um, for skills, and I'm like, hey, man, we focus around skills, because the S, the skill development and the task level, performance on the fire ground, ultimately is the most important thing.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, man, you might be having a bad day, and that's okay, man, we is the most important thing. So, yeah, man, you might be having a bad day, and that's okay, man, we're there to pick you up when you need it, right, and everybody's going to have a day that they're a little bit off. But if we consistently focus on the metrics of what we deem important, then I think then everybody wins, and so I can tell you some of those metrics. So, so, so, uh, first and foremost, uh, obviously you know where we work and where you work. I think a lot of guys get off the truck masked up, but I still wanted to set a metric for that. So the metric, so the first metric for us is that you should be able to mask up with your gloves on in 20 seconds or less.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a good one and that's and that's something that that takes time right To learn that that trick, that trade.
Speaker 1:So right and so, and so, when we set that metric, that all of a sudden became a thing for our crew to do every single shift. It might be in the morning, might be in the morning when you're checking your bottle off, could be in the afternoon before you do a workout. There's been days where we've been busy and it's been nine, nine, 30 at night and guys are like, hey, man, we haven't done it yet, let's get it in Right. Man, we haven't done it yet, let's get it in Right. But now you're creating crew continuity, you're creating conversation and you're setting a metric and you're and you're, you're doing that with some real friendly competition.
Speaker 1:Right Cause, guys, cause, I'll tell you, man, it's like the other day, you know. It's like, uh, a guy's got 12 seconds on his mask up time and all of a sudden the guy's the guy in 11 seconds. You're like awesome dude, like dude, that is so awesome, like that's how it should be. So that's a metric for us. Another metric for us is, when we pull up on a structure fire, that the first line off the truck should be pulled off. The truck at the door, laid out, attack over supply, charged, ready to make entry, gloved up, masked up, ready to roll in 60 seconds or less.
Speaker 2:All right, and that's from airbrake hit.
Speaker 1:Airbrake hit 60 seconds or less. We're making entry into the structure, ready to make entrance into the structure with a charge hand line Nice.
Speaker 2:That's great and it's crazy too, because you had said it right before. That too, you're like you know. Then they become competitive. Then with that too, you're like you know, then they become competitive, then it gets great. That's like. One of the best things about the freaking fire service is we are type A personalities, right, we are competitive individuals. So when you ignite that fire within us, it's like you can almost take the guy that's that you know, maybe a low performer, to just teetering that mediocre and obviously not the stud, right. But you can almost transition them into being a competent or mediocre on his skill level, probably rapidly, just because he doesn't want to be embarrassing for his friends or he wants to beat their times Right.
Speaker 1:Dude, absolutely, man, absolutely, and. And, at the end of the day, man, like you know, nobody wants to be mediocre, and especially, especially when they're around high performers, then they're like all right, uh, what do I have to do to get there? And what's interesting is, obviously, in the system that I work in it's, it's pretty transient. Uh, we have a lot of guys that float in and out of the station, guys working all the time this kind of stuff, and so when they see this stuff happening at the station, they're very intrigued by it.
Speaker 1:And so, um, you know, I had a better day where I work and we had two guys that are off. My two guys in the backseat are off, and so I have two guys over there for the day who I've never worked with either. One of those guys on fire truck, ok, and, and so we, we did some of this stuff in the afternoon. We did the mask up, we did a workout in gear where I set some metrics for the workout, and both of those guys were like, hey, man, when I go back to my regular station, like I'm taking this with me, and I was like that's exactly what this is for, man, that's exactly what it's for.
Speaker 2:That is the best thing in the world.
Speaker 2:And it's funny because I was just listening to, like literally I think, earlier today, on another fire department podcast, but it was a couple episodes ago, off the scrap Great podcast, by the way, but they had an operations chief from the city of Fairfax, I believe, and he said something along the lines of when it came down to that, competition, that's what gets going.
Speaker 2:And then you get these guys that transition into your station as a transient firehouses Right, and then they take that back with them and it's you've accomplished something, because you don't care Like you personally do not care who gets credit for that, right, and it's like he had basically mentioned, like, as soon as you don't give a fuck about who gets credit, you can accomplish a lot, because it's the egos of the fire service. That is what slows us down, right, and it's so they come in and they bring it back and I guarantee you, before they leave, you're like oh, hey, hey, by the way, don't forget to tell those guys who showed you how to do that, right. I guarantee that doesn't come out of your mouth.
Speaker 1:Dude, absolutely not. I mean, and that's the thing it's like. I mean I love that you're saying that about ego, because to me, I mean that's the biggest killer in the fire service and you know, especially you know we we have a lot of guys on my department that are in that five to eight year range right now and to me, to me, like that's the most dangerous place to be right, because those guys are they know enough to to have some skill, but but they also don't know enough to be truly masters of their craft, right, and so like what they think that they do.
Speaker 1:So it's like in that complacency stage of like and and and, as these younger guys are coming behind them, they're kind of looking at them like, oh well, you know, I don't need to train, uh, I don't need to pull hoes, because you're pulling hoes and I'm gonna tell you what to do. But then, like, you're watching this thing happen and you're like dude, dude, like I know that you can't pull as good as that guy who just got probation. So like, let's, everybody should be doing it. So, and you know which, which? For me, man, that's all about leading by example, and so that's my leadership style is to lead by example.
Speaker 1:I think that if you are a leader in the American fire service, you 100 percent need to lead by example, and that starts in training. When you're training, you need to have your gear on and be doing whatever it is that everybody else is doing, and and and, because I think it gets confused, right, leading by example doesn't mean that you're the best at everything, and I think people are afraid sometimes lead by example because they think that they have to be the true expert, the subject matter expert, in, in whatever it is that's happening. And you don't. Man, it's okay to be vulnerable. It's okay to not be the best at something. It's okay to say to a younger firefighter or a firefighter that's not in the same rank as you is to say hey, man, I know you're good at that. Can you show me that? Can you help me improve this? Let's talk about this. Why do you do things the way that you're doing? Because I was taught this way. You tell me why you're doing it that way.
Speaker 2:And it's huge for buy-in. Like you had mentioned that earlier, like how do you get buy-in? I think you just answered that question right.
Speaker 1:Dude, exactly, man, and I'll tell you so. At my station, you know, we get a new probationary firefighter every three months. So I've been a captain there for about three years maybe a little more, a little more than three years now so consist consistently every three months for three years I've had a new firefighter in my backseat. Some of those guys are day one out of the academy, some of them on six months, some of them on their nine months, so somewhere in that range, right. But but no matter who, it is day one for every single one of those guys is exactly the same, and what we do is we sit down in the morning, we drink coffee, we eat breakfast together. We set expectations for them.
Speaker 1:As a crew, we talk about some of the stuff the mask-up times, the water-to-door times, the forceful entry time that they're expected to have, the search time that they're expected to have, that stuff. But then we go out and we train, and the thing that we train on is we take plugs so we hook up to hydrants the first day, and when we do that, every single person in the firehouse does it and we keep it for time. So now it's a friendly competition, right, but every single person, including including me I'm the captain least likely ever to hook up to a hydrant in the field, right? I mean like, let's be, let's be honest, it's not going to be me, uh. So so I do it, my engineer does it, every firefighter does it, the probationary guy does it, and you know we have fun with that, we make a little competition out of it and the worst time ends up buying, you know, sodas for everybody afterwards at circle k or qt or whatever.
Speaker 1:But but the thing is, the point of that is, I want my newest members to know that me, noah katz, is a captain. I am not better than anybody else, right, right, and and that is a very, very important lesson to learn and to set early in somebody's career hey, man, you're captain, you're a captain, you're an engineer, you're a firefighter. Hey, we are not above you, we have more time than you. That doesn't mean we're above you. And so I think that it kind of breaks down some of those barriers in the beginning, because people need to understand that you're approachable, and then they also need to understand that you have been in their shoes. And hey, man, at the end of of the day, we're all firefighters and we all should be working to become masters of our craft. So so that kind of, that kind of sets the tone for for how we go about our each month, each three month period with, with our newest firefighters I got?
Speaker 2:well, it's. It sounds like you don't be. So it's going to kind of ask you a question when it came down to those expectations being, uh, the same for every single person, and you kind of already answered it. Because I was going to ask you well, what about when those booters or probies or rookies whatever you guys call them in your department, right, how do you set those expectations if you're saying, hey, everyone's got the same standard to hit? But you basically just answered it.
Speaker 2:And what's crazy is I love the fact that as soon as you're like, okay, we're going to go grab a plug, literally everyone's out there grabbing, trying to beat each other's time we did one day. The battalion came by I don't even know what sparked it, but he's like, hey, you guys want to run just this super fun drill that obviously you saw it somewhere. And we're like, yeah, boss, what do you want to do? He's like I don't know, it's just there's something it's called like a one-man drill and basically it is you drive the engine, right, you grab, you.
Speaker 2:You hit the air brake, you run out, you grab the plug. You get back in, right you, you get it. You drop the first coupling. Then you come out, you make all your connections, you pull it quick. I mean the whole thing, from uh, infancy to to termination, right, everything we do on the fire ground, but with one guy and he's like I want every single one of you guys to go through it and he's timing us, it's like okay, and we all went through and it was funny like literally from the backstaff fireman to the engineer, to the captain, um, and I think his aid even did it once, because we were just having so much fun just messing around with this drill. And the funniest thing about it is the captain got the quickest time and he was the most likely and we had already, like made bets prior to like well, the engineer is going to be the best you know, because he's right.
Speaker 2:It's just, but it was just funny, like how it worked out and ended up. It is impromptu drill, but it was. It was fun for everybody, you know.
Speaker 1:Dude, I mean, training should be fun, right. I mean, and that's the other thing about it is, I think sometimes people think that training is a task and I'm like, dude, training should be fun, right, Like this is your job, like you should be passionate about it, like there is going to be a time where you're going to train on something that you don't like you know, and that's okay. You have to understand how that fits into the process. But, dude, the training should be fun. And, as you're saying that to me, like I'm kind of thinking about how you know we run things and how I see things from my perspective. But one thing that we always talk about in training is is that, uh and I stole this from somebody else and I can't remember who it is but essentially there's a psychologist who who worked with some sports teams and they came up with this thing. That's saying that, basically, a skill is not a skill unless you can perform it under pressure. Oh, that's good, and so to me it's like break down what we do, right, like anybody can force a door in daylight with nobody yelling at them. Right, anybody can pull a line under a minute when there's no what? When there there's no consequences to that right. Anybody can perform a search in you know three different rooms. When there's no, what? When there there's no consequences to that right, anybody can perform a search in you know three different rooms. When there's no smoke and there's no heat, right? So put consequences to these things.
Speaker 1:And now, all of a sudden, you put pressure on people and that that skill really has to be a skill or else they're not gonna be able to achieve it. So the fact that you're taking, you know, plugs, and it's for time, and people are razzing you as you do it, that's pressure, right. And so now you're increasing that skillset, right. So for you, for that drill you're talking about, hey man, like you guys are making wagers on who's going to be the best. Well, that's pressure. So now, when those guys are performing, it's like you're like hey man, I don't want to be the worst one. So you're pressuring yourself. So now you really are developing your skills and showcasing your skills and doing that, and that is true training. So I'm, I'm all about that stuff, man. I think that stuff is awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I said, it's, it's amazing. I like the fact that you said pressure and you were referring to something that I just finished talking about. That was enjoyable and a good time, because I also believe people think that word is a dirty word, like pressure, is a negative feeling. It's not negative, it's a motivation. I don't know if you feel the same way.
Speaker 1:I do A hundred percent, I do. I mean, I think that that pressure, uh pressure is awesome, man, because and if you don't train with pressure and you don't talk about pressure or how people respond to pressure and kind of look at human behavior when it comes to pressure, like that's, you're doing a disservice, right, especially in the world that we work in. You think about it's like, think about the worst, very worst thing that could happen or you or you could arrive to. And you know, man, it's like when I was, I wasn't even a made captain, I was studying to be a captain. I was moved up at the station, I worked at the time and, you know, I hadn't even a made captain, I was studying to be a captain.
Speaker 1:I was moved up at the station I worked at at the time and, you know, I hadn't been in command of a fire yet and, as you know, it's like you just want to get that first fire under your belt and be like, hey, man, I know I can do that, right, yeah, and so so he kicked out the fire and middle of the night we turned the corner on station and and you can see I mean you can see this column like it's about a mile away from the station. We can see it and I'm like, dude, this, this thing is rocking. Uh, it's an 800 foot leg into this, uh, into this complex and I'm like, yeah, we're not laying in, it's too far. Yeah, you know so, um, multi-company station, so we knew we had water coming, but now all of a sudden the alarm room's clearing us and they're like, hey, we got the family on the phone.
Speaker 2:There's a 14 year old girl trapped in there oh shit, there goes rescue profile through the roof now right, right.
Speaker 1:So you're like, okay, uh, copy that right. So now we're pulling up and, dude, it's like all you can see is fire. And then you got mom and dad in the front like legitimately screaming hey, my baby's in there, my baby's in there, do something. And so like when you think about worst case scenarios, it's like, dude, like it doesn't get any any more real than that. And it, and if, if people were to crumble under that pressure, like we are not doing what we're supposed to be doing at all. But the fact is, because guys are trained up, guys are are mission driven, they're focused on their task, they have trained under pressure and they continue to develop their skill sets and continue to try to master their craft. Because all those things led up to that. Everything happened the way that it should and unfortunately, uh, for that young lady, she did not survive that. But I feel like we did everything to the best of our ability and we gave her the best chance possible and that's, and that's all we can.
Speaker 1:It's all we can do. Yeah, right, it's all we. It's all we can do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we can yeah, obviously I, ideally, we can only make things better. So that's, that's that goal behind it. So with that, you know, and you said it so, like depression, I believe. Again, my personal opinion, I believe, with the generation coming up and I don't even blame them, I blame us too for adapting, or society to adapting, or whatever the case might be we have eliminated a lot of the pressure from people's lives and then we get them. We get these really good people that want to become firemen right, and they go through an academy, and if we don't apply a lot of pressure right In the academy setting when I say pressure, I'm talking mostly about like volume and attitude, and what I mean by that is like we fail this generation so far.
Speaker 2:Right, and we're trying to correct this now on how we talk to them. And I've noticed this, I'm curious on what you feel too, probably within the last five years in the American Fire Service, right, we'll get these brand new guys. They have a great attitude, they're ready to work, they're go-getters, they want to learn everything, and then, as soon as our boots hit the ground and I have to make a harsh command decision right, there's no more pleases, thank yous and everything else it is a direct fucking order at a high volume and I want you to repeat it back to me so I make sure you understand right, and I need you to do it right the fuck now. But instead of doing, exactly what I expect to happen is they repeat back to me, right, they do that job in a timely manner. Then come back to me, right, they stop and freeze because all of a sudden they're like shit, steve's mad at me and I'm like.
Speaker 2:I am not mad, you know, but it's like because of how we've I don't even know if it's society, whatever it is. I'm curious on what you feel it might be, but it's. We have, we've catered to this nicer, you know, uh, lifestyle all the way around the united states, where then all of a sudden, we raise our voice and it's like this is a bad thing. It's like it's not a fucking bad thing. I need you to do something right now, and then you use the least amount of words possible to do it right. So you do, you guys, you feel like you see that more in the last couple years. Is that something you've been facing? And then how do you kind of how you deal with that?
Speaker 1:yeah, um 100. We, we see that. I I feel that often. Uh, like I said, I mean especially because we get so many probationary firefighters at my station, like you see, every three months right every three months and in a lot of different ages of these guys too, right.
Speaker 1:So I mean I, I, I think, I don't, I don't want to say it's cultural and or that it's it's the generation, because I will tell you, I have, recently I had a um racial firefighter who was 18, 19 years old, and this kid is complete stud and I could have said anything in any way to him and he'd be like copy that and he just yes, sir, you know it looked like like it, like nothing.
Speaker 1:Nothing faced him, um. But I also, when you look a little bit, dive a little bit deeper into that. You look at that guy's past, his upbringing, uh, some hardships that he's based early on in his life, uh, who raised him? Some things like that. It kind of makes sense, right. So I, I definitely agree. I think that the, the, the upbringing is a little bit softer and like just speaking for myself, right, like I played sports my whole life, um, and I remember being like a eight year old kid and just getting motherfucked up and down, right.
Speaker 1:And my mom getting get back in the car from this, from from my coach, and I'm getting in the car and my mom is just like I can't believe he said that they talked to you kids like that. And I'm just like it's like dude, like I like what are you talking about? He talks to us that practice every day. Like that, my mom's like what you know? And it's like I'm not saying it's right, but I definitely think that that stuff is, is not where it was. So we definitely see, you know, and I don't know, man, I mean I think I think so much of that comes back to leadership, right, like, like, yes, things need to be done, things need to be urgent. I definitely think that part of being a leader in the fire service is reading people, understanding people's minds, how they work, what, what pushes their buttons, how what may motivate them or demotivate them, because those are all things that, at the end of the day, man, are incredibly important, not only for civilian safety, which is our number one objective, but also for firefighter safety. Because it's like you think about your own safety and it's like when you do rituals, you do some A mayday stuff and all of a sudden you turn that pressure up, you darken it down a little bit and it's like man, like dude. We've been packaging firefighters every single day, like now, all of a sudden, we turn up the stakes a little bit and you can't do it like dude. This isn't it. This is a fucking drill. Yeah, you know, I mean so. So it's like dude, like, but you have to understand. And again, like that was a very I think that was a lesson that I had to learn as a captain, because I'm very much a go getter and, like I said, I mean my sports background and come playing sports at a collegiate level and stuff. It's like dude. It's like when somebody asks you to do it, like if they yell at you, whatever it is, it's like just do it. And that may not be how it is, but I I think the psychology of how people work is very interesting, and so I think I've definitely adjusted to some of that stuff.
Speaker 1:Um, but at the end of the day, man, I think when you're talking about leadership principles and how you come back, some of that stuff, one thing I've always been a huge fan of is is, you know, building those relationships with people, because I think people, when they really trust you and they, and they really get to see you, um, all sides of you then I think that that there is a chance that maybe you can combat that and they understand the urgency. But that goes back to signals, expectations too, cause if they don't know what you're about or what the expectation is for the crew, then it's like, well, how do they know that? And I set that expectation for my crew very early on, right. So we talk about obviously, you know, in our system here, um, in in the valley, there's 26, 28 cities that that operate off volume two policies, and it's like, hey, man, like, if you just look at the tactical objectives for the fire ground, the number one tactical objective is life safety, yeah, and so so when you ask a young firefighter, hey, man, what does that mean to you?
Speaker 1:Like, let's be honest, like most of the time they don't know, and that's okay. I'm not saying they should know, but it is our job to explain to them what that means and how do we achieve that type of objective, what are the things, what are the metrics with that? And and, uh, so, one thing that I, I talk about when I teach and I certainly, uh, you know, talk about this with my crew and the young firefighters I have is when we start talking about search, and specifically when you're talking about primary all clear, you ask a young firefighter hey man, when do you call a primary all clear?
Speaker 1:And a lot of these guys are like, yeah, skip, it's primary clear when we've searched all the rooms. Or yeah, when we think that there's nobody in there or whatever they have to say about that, and I just say to them hey, man, a primary all clear is complete when you can live with the results oh, that's because that's not, that's a good way to drop it down because you're right.
Speaker 1:If you miss something on that primary and you find it later, like we all know the ones I have right it's, that's a fucking horrible feeling, you know it's, it's uh, man, man, it gives me goosebumps talking about it, but it's like yeah, man, I totally don't believe that it is our job as leaders in the fire service to empower your members to make independent decisions.
Speaker 1:And I fully trust the people that work for me and I train them to a high level. But I tell them, hey, man, I trust you, right, give them that empowerment. I trust you when I tell you I need you to go give me a search of that, that room or that hallway or that living room or whatever it is, and you come back to me say, hey, skip, all clear, like dude, like you, 100 better be sure, yeah, yeah, right. So, yeah, man, I think, empowering some, setting those expectations, empowering your people and then training them to that standard and not expecting them to be perfect from the very beginning, I think those are all things that kind of create a formula to overcoming some of those, those differences that we have generationally right now.
Speaker 2:Dude, I love it, and you gave me the perfect transition now, because I really wanted to make sure we had time to talk about training, especially because of your resume, and then I would love to talk about your company a little bit too. So let me ask you a question and this is something I haven't had a chance to ask anybody yet on this podcast. But we're sitting down talking to the boys one day this is just recently and I said, man, I was listening to this guy talking. He made a fucking valid point and I'm like why have I never thought about them? I present this information. All the guys around the table were like makes sense, I never thought about that. Why, why isn't it like that?
Speaker 2:So, with that said so, we all know the military right. So if you join whatever branch of service, it is, you go to bootcamp. Okay, so I'm prior military, I was prior Coast Guard. So Coast Guard only has one bootcamp it's in Cape May, new Jersey. So, with that said so, everyone in the United States goes to Cape May, new Jersey, to learn how to be a Coast Guard right, learn how to do the job you learn how to be in the military, everything else. Why? You know, army does it, marine Corps does it, everybody does it, air Force, the whole nine, right?
Speaker 2:So, with that said, so, why and it'd be amazing if we could eventually get here why does the American fire service do the same thing? Because guys will say, well, there's too many egos, or this is how we've always done it, or whatever. So well, the military fucking does it, right, they get these 18-year-old snot-ass kids, including myself, right. They break them down, they build them up. But could you imagine, right, and you could disagree with me I think this is the greatest idea in the world, right?
Speaker 2:If we had a nationwide training facility, one on the East Coast, one Midwest, one West Coast, right, but all three academies train the exact same thing.
Speaker 2:So, if you go to a West Coast training academy, it's because you got hired by, let's say, la right, or Oregon, or like wherever, like Portland or something like that, somewhere on the West Coast. So, but they all train the same. So, on the West Coast Academy, you still learn how to fight a high rise fire, like the New York City guys do. But vice versa, the guys in New York City will learn how to fight a fire that has a 1200 foot freaking lay right, it's set back on three acres. Like like it's weird that I mean the military has done this successfully and I'm curious what you think about it. Like I wonder why the American fire service never went to that kind of recipe to get literally everybody on the same page, because that way they could take us, transport us into any state in you, in across the country, and we'd be able to function in their system, you know yeah, yeah, I mean dude.
Speaker 1:I mean, first of all, I love, I love the military, uh, concepts and and one thing that I've heard somebody else say and I I do love, uh, in relation to the fire service, um, again, I wasn't in the military, but I'm just just speaking from what, from some of my, that I've heard somebody else say, and I do love in relation to the fire service Again, I wasn't in the military, but I'm just speaking from what, from some of my, my knowledge. But so, in the Marines, like, no matter what you go into the Marines to do, like everybody's a rifleman. Yeah, exactly, I mean, so it's like an American fire service, like every single person is a hoseman. Right, like you go to the academy, every single person is a hoseman. Right, like you go to the academy, every single person is a hoseman. So like there is a very uh big relation to those two things.
Speaker 1:Um, I think, I think at one time, uh, you know, people have always said, you know, like, uh, you know politics and and firefighting tactics are, are, are local, type of type of the type of thing you know and you're like, okay, well, I do agree with you to some extent because I do think that, as I've traveled, you know you travel to different places and people are doing the same exact job every single city that you go to. And in fact, I was in Mexico, ino, last February. We did a conference down there, which was an incredible experience and, dude, I mean, I don't speak Spanish, so I have a translator who's the battalion chief in Mexicali and his English is good, very good, and he did a great job for me and, in fact, it was funny because by the end of the third day, he's kind of like giving my spiel without me saying anything. That's awesome. This guy's kind of funny, but uh, but uh, but here's the thing. It's like you're, you're teaching firefighters, but I don't. You don't even speak the same language as them.
Speaker 1:These guys are wearing turnouts that have holes in them right, the crotches are blown out. They got holes in their boots, like their scbas don't have pass alarms. Uh, they have like no capability to to buddy breathe or trans fill with anybody because these bottles are so old, right, like, but yet, but yet, these, these, these men and women, both are number one, going balls to the wall in every single evolution that you could throw at them, which was awesome, soaking up everything that you're saying. And then, on top of that, these, these men and women are going to legit, like legit fires, like some of these guys are showing us videos and pictures from some of the fires that they're responding to. And, uh, in fact, um, one of the battalion chiefs from tijuana shows me on his phone, like he's like, hey, check this out. And he shows me this, this, like you know, montage video on his phone and I was like man, that's badass, like what is that like a couple years in tijuana?
Speaker 1:he's like he's like that's one month holy, and I was like, and I was, and I was like dude, like, like, can I come work for you? Like dude, like that's insane, yeah, insane, uh, so, so, so, what? So what you find out is that firefighting has no borders, man, it really doesn't. And and and no borders, no state to state, uh, internationally, it really has no borders.
Speaker 1:Um, could we eventually do something like that, like you're saying, like I don't know, man, I think you're right, I think ego is such a big thing in the fire service and, unfortunately, because of ego, we will never get, never get there. Um, but is there an opportunity to go to other places and learn other things and bring those things back to your own organization and try to improve uh, things like, yes, absolutely, and and quite honestly, man, I think if you come from, uh, from, like, if you work in a municipality where you went through an academy and then they put you through their own training and you've been on a job like, you should be able to be inserted any city, any, anywhere, any time of day, front seat, back seat and be able to be successful, right, I mean, like you're, you're, you're a firefighter and and that that is a humongous honor to be that, and unfortunately that's part of the other.
Speaker 1:The issue in in in the american fire service is that is that while people like us people talk on podcasts or listen to podcasts except, like, obviously they are, they are very into the job, but the majority of the fire service and the majority of departments are not, and and so that creates those issues. Right, but, man, the more training that happens, the better, right. And I think one thing that's interesting you know, obviously I teach a lot of search stuff when I travel and one thing that's very interesting right now in the search world is that pretty much everywhere you go, everybody knows the common language of like, hey, when you find a victim, you call out victim, victim, victim. That's a pretty standard thing. What I've been seeing is that when you go to these places and you talk to people, what happens after you call a victim victim, victim, what happens after you call a victim, victim, victim, because everybody has a different take on the language that's used, the protocol that happens. You know, I think a lot of the techniques for dragging and removing victims is becoming pretty common, which is awesome because that is 100% of benefit to the citizen and the customer, and that's what we should be doing.
Speaker 1:But when it comes to the communication pieces and how we communicate those things and how we enact those actions as fast as possible to have the most positive outcome, as we know, time is our greatest enemy, right?
Speaker 1:So, like, how do you do those things?
Speaker 1:It is not as common as you would think, and so maybe having more consistency across the American Fire Service benefits the outcome for these people that we are trying to rescue. I mean, I definitely think that. I mean, if you look at Firefighter Rescue Survey since that survey has come out right and then you put that in conjunction with ULFSRI search study and stuff, and it's like man, like there's so much great information, science-based, and you know all this data that backs up where we find victims, what time of day it is, you know the, the, the height levels of which we need to keep their head at to reduce the toxic and the thermal threats to them, all this stuff, right, but you still have firefighters that are like, oh fuck that if I find somebody, I was gonna pick them up and carry them out yeah it's always coming from a guy that's never actually had to do that job and they're only, they're only uh slideshow and their brain is a training evolution with a dummy right, and we all know dummies do not replicate fleshy people, right.
Speaker 1:Right, right, yeah, man, and so, so, yeah, man, I think, the consistency level. I would love it if, if the fire service came out and said hey, man, when you find a victim, you call out victim, victim, victim. When that is done, here are the next steps that we should be doing. Right, but and that's a battle that a lot of people are, are are fighting. It's like you know, everybody's, like you know, fuck the nfda.
Speaker 1:And and hey, man like this, you know, fuck ifsta. But at the end of the day, man, like, those things were put in place for certain reasons. I'm not saying that I agree with a lot of the things that are coming out of there right now, but I I do think that instead of telling those guys go fuck themselves, then maybe maybe there's an opportunity for for us to have some real conversation and, to you know, try to encourage them to change their practices. That would actually be true. You know firefighting techniques and tactics for the nation.
Speaker 1:You know, and and I think that's a reality because you know, I'll give you an example what you know, um, uh, a chief that you know from the valley, dennis compton, um, who was, you know, a very big name around the valley, like he, and in the american fire service, for a lot of things that he's done. I mean I know him personally. Fantastic man, uh, the stories he tells, his charisma, I mean just very, very incredible. You know, 40 some years as an active, uh, you know, member as, as, as you know, I think he retired as as, um, the chief of Mesa fire department. So I mean, but anyway, he, he sits on the it's the panels, so it's like man, like that guy gets it.
Speaker 1:Man, that guy has worked in some of a few very large cities, very busy fire companies, right, that guy understands, right, but yet he's still writing the manuals for IFTA. So it's like dude, like you can't say like, hey, man, hey, you know that guy doesn't get it because he does. But maybe those are conversations that we need to start having as a fire service to try to encourage continuity across the fire service. Because I'll tell you what man um in in travels. It's like dude, uh, you meet people same mindset, same skill sets, do things a little bit differently, but in, but you start having those conversations and people are learning things uh from you and you're taking from them and, dude, you're creating this, this incredible uh recipe for success.
Speaker 2:When you do those things, you know Absolutely, and we've mentioned it in prior episodes and it kind of feels like it almost gets mentioned every episode now. So if it does, it does. But again, to really drive the point home, to be a master of your craft for everyone listening, right, it's like, hey, what's a magic pill? There's no magic pill. But I'll tell you one thing. And we just alluded to it. Right, it's like, hey, what's the magic pill? There's no magic pill. But I'll tell you one thing. And, uh, we just alluded to it. Right, you have to have to have to get out of your department, out of your region, and start experimenting, taking classes elsewhere, in the cross, the United States, or you know the world. You know like you have, but it's you got to get out of your bubble, your safety bubble, what you're comfortable with, if you really truly want to get better.
Speaker 1:And the craziest thing is you can learn something out of class. Bring it back and be an influential person without even knowing it, just by showing your boys what you learned. Dude, I love it and I obviously agree 100%. Obviously, I think getting outside of the walls of your own fire department is the best thing that anybody can do, and you know, when I first started doing that stuff, um, you know I I was trying to put it in perspective because, of course, like you, you go to these classes and conferences and you want to come back and you're full of piss and vinegar and you want to change the world, and especially in an organization like mine it's a very large organization like you're like okay, so I think this is awesome.
Speaker 1:Everybody else here thinks that I'm a complete idiot, you know so, like, how, how do you do that? And and one thing that that I think about often and this is something that I actually uh from my mom, uh, is that it's like she was telling me you know, hey, you're either going to learn something and be like yeah, there's a better, this is a better way to do it, and you're going to adapt to some of that stuff, or you're going to look at that and be like I'm never going to do it that way because that is not right. And so now you know, when you're in that position, that you're not going to do it that way. So it reaffirms that you're not going to do it that way. So it reaffirms that you're doing the right things in your own organization, or it can reaffirm that maybe some changes needed. And both of those things are good things, because either way, you're proving the point that that, that that change in the fire service is necessary and you are learning something.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, man, I yeah and don't get discouraged either, like the guys, like when you go out there and take the classes and and like skip was just saying, like you come back and you're full of piss and vinegar, I mean that's a fucking good thing, it's a very good thing, right. But don't get discouraged when you get shot down everything else, like I would. When you start thinking about departments, right. So, uh, new york city, biggest freaking department in the United States right, over 11,000 freaking, sworn members. If 11,000 firemen in New York City were studs, right, every single one would have a podcast, they would have a training minute, they would have something, right? We all know the famous New York City firemen, right? So just because they're the biggest, baddest department in the country, right, doesn't mean that they have all the same problems that we have. Right, the same percentage of douchebags and mutts. Right, the same percentage of high performance. But it's just the fact that they're so large like your department's, way bigger than my department right, you have the same percentage of high performance as we do, but you have more members, so you have more high performance.
Speaker 2:But then again it swings the other way too, when it comes down to the guys, that the naysayers are the ones that aren't willing to change or even even listen to anybody. You know it's the larger you are, the more naysayers you have, because it's the same, it's the same percentage. You know, and it's our job, and the guys listening right, is to continue to push the love of the job right. The passion for the job, the calling right and this is this whole podcast exists because the copper stay fools and remember, like as we talk, and I like to mention this as much as I can. If you need those opportunities or like-minded individuals, um, like captain cats on here right now, find a fool's chapter right, they'll help you out, whatever state you're in. I guarantee there's at least one um, there's probably multiple, but those are the guys you need to seek out. But it's like skip was saying that's, that's, that's what you're going to face, right, but don't let that discourage you. Is kind of why I was interjecting no dude, absolutely, man.
Speaker 1:and I will say, you know, learning skill sets and learning new techniques, and that kind of stuff is only a small fraction of the benefit of getting outside of the walls of your own organization. And you know, I use myself as the example, you know, but the relationships that you build with people by going to conferences, going to trainings, um, and, and what you learn out of those relationships and the friendship that you make from that is just absolutely incredible. Man, I've had some experiences, uh, that I just, and I'm just so humble and thankful for. And um, I'll talk real brief about what I did, uh, last week or before, but, um, you know, a few years ago I went to a conference and you know, we're, we're fellowshipping at the bar after afterwards and just so happened to to recognize corley moore from the weekly scrap right, he's there just talking about it, right yeah, yeah, right, right.
Speaker 1:So you're just talking, so like, and you know a lot of people. You don't know who he is and stuff, and so so we had talked to him earlier in the day at the conference, because when I went to smoke divers there was a guy from his fire department that was in my smoke diver class and so we were talking about him and the setting, I think. So we see him at the bar and he's like, oh, he's standing next to another guy and he says, hey, you know, I want to introduce you to Kevin Pfluger. And I was like, oh, cool man. So I started having this conversation with this guy, kevin Pfluger. I've never met the guy before. I don't know where he's from, I don't know much about him.
Speaker 1:Well, fast forward, man. He's become a very close friend of mine. He is incredibly, incredibly dialed in in the fire service. He's a lieutenant in Live oak, texas. It's a one station fire department outside of san antonio. That fire department in one station is, hands down, probably the most progressive and aggressive fire department I've seen. Really, it is incredible and again, to your point, there are still people that work there that don't buy into that stuff. And he has a target on his back just as big as anybody else, right? However, uh, these guys are incredible, man.
Speaker 1:Um, they run a conference there, daggum fire conference in texas. I've been to it twice. He came to the symposium here. Uh, he's been out here to do host testing a few times. Uh, you know, like we just developed this relationship, man he is. He's one of my first phone calls that I make when I got something that's really bothering me or, you know, I got something exciting that's going on, or just want to talk shop. It's like he's one of my first phone calls and that's just. That's just cause I met him at a bar and, quite honestly, man, he, uh, you know he's the reason that I went to daggum fire conference the first year.
Speaker 1:He had invited us, so we went and another guy that I worked with uh, at the time we went, the two of us and he were the only two guys from phoenix there and um so he puts us into this group and and, um, he pairs us with with four firefighters from porter fire department, which is a suburb of houston, and these dudes are go-getters, man, these dudes are just complete studs and, um, so we're with these guys for four days, um, two days of skills, two days of live fire with these guys for four days. Man develop some relationship with these guys. Dude, awesome, awesome guys, really really badass firemen. Fast forward, um a few months ago, ke Kevin Fleur calls me and says that Jessica Steele, who's a Lieutenant in Porter, who was in that group, that he got diagnosed with stage four lung cancer and he's a 30, early thirties, you know he's married, he's got yeah.
Speaker 1:And he's married, he's got he's got two kids, two young kids, right. And so they wanted to put on a conference for him to do a benefit for him, raise some money for his family, and and so I was like, dude, whatever you need, like I will be there, right. So so we went there to Houston last week, the week before, and did a conference and raised thirty five thousand dollars for him and his family and did a conference and raised $35,000 for him and his family. Wow, that's amazing. Yeah, he was there, right, he was there, and and I mean not a dry eye in the room right when he's he's thanking everybody for being there, and just incredible, incredible experience.
Speaker 1:But that's, that's the fire service man, that's the true fire service, and you only meet people that are willing to go outside of their own organization and give up their time and give up their knowledge and give whatever they need to give to help somebody out. If you go outside Because, when it comes to training, I think there are fire departments that do an excellent job of training their members, but, no matter what, no fire department can can give somebody everything that they need to be a master of their craft, so you have to go outside, not only to build the skill sets but also to develop the relationships that people you can rely on, so that you have resources to go to when you need them. And so, yeah, man, it's, like I said, very fortunate to have you know to be doing some of the things that I'm doing, and in part because getting outside of my own department, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Actually, just to just to echo what you just said, I had a battalion chief tell me this once and I'm like that makes a hell of a lot of sense. But he said if you're waiting, you know, for the training department. But he said if you're waiting for the training department, so obviously your department to provide you the training that you need to be successful and good at this job, you're going to be sorely disappointed. So there's just not enough time. I mean, both of us work for very busy departments, right, but it doesn't matter the call volume, it's the same thing, it's time, it's money, everything else. So if you're waiting for your department to provide all the training, it's never going to come, you're never going to be proficient.
Speaker 1:Dude, absolutely man.
Speaker 1:And like I said, man, I was the director of training for our department and obviously a very large organization. You have 1,800 line personnel, line personnel so and so when you're even look at a calendar, right, even you look at the calendar just to be like, hey, when can we do training? Well, hey, man, so, like I know, as a director of training, like our calendar ran on a two-year cycle. So it's a two-year cycle, right, that's what they plan out, 24 months at a time. And it's like, dude, like realistically, you can in in a 24-month cycle, you're going to fit in maybe two like legitimate hands-on drills, right, and there's lead-up blocks to that stuff. But when you, when you think in in our world of fire service, unfortunately, uh, or fortunately, depending who you are our world of fire service also includes emMS, it also includes, you know, hazmat, trt, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So it's like, as we continue to get more modalities for the fire department, like the training time on actual true skill development for firefighters is less and less and less.
Speaker 2:Yeah, firefighters is less and less and less. Yeah, and the American fire service as a whole, from inception up to today, sitting down and talking to you, I mean, the amount of jobs and specialties the public expects us to be able to master and then the public expects us to be able to perform, is just endless units. I feel like every couple of years something else is added or expanded upon. You know, it's like every time you turn around it's like, oh shit, now we have electric vehicles to worry about hydrogen fusions in the future. And then you know, so we're doing EMS now. Oh, let's do paramedics, let's do medicine, let's do community. I mean, it's like it's just over and over. There's no other government organization out there that just continuously gets bombarded with these jobs. Right, and then, literally within a snap of a finger, the public is expecting us to just be perfect at them. You know that's a lot of pressure, like we talked about. You know, the first couple of minutes of this podcast, that pressure, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, man. And that's the thing is, like, you know, you truly need to be great at all those things and unfortunately that's not always possible, right? So, and you're right, I mean I remember early on in my career there was a chief that said hey, man, he's like listen, like, if anybody your friend, your family, public, whoever, if they ever give you a hard time about the money that you make, they're like just have an understanding that they don't understand. Because at the end of the day, man, you are a true expert in everything that you do.
Speaker 1:You drive a fire truck or an ambulance, right, you are an EMT or a paramedic, you are a firefighter, you are, you know, a special ops technician, you are whatever, etc. Etc. He goes this whole line of things. He's like you are expected to be 100 perfect in all those things and you are to some degree right. So, so you, you absolutely deserve everything that you get. You know, yeah, and it's kind of kind of unique outlook because, at the end of the day, like, uh, man, I mean it all comes down to to what the public expects of us.
Speaker 2:I mean, I mean I tell the recruits that right now I'm down at the academy as rto and it's I. I told them the same thing the other day and I said what does the public expect from you? Right, and of course these are brand spanking new wide-eyed guys, right, you know, of course. So everyone just big looks at me and I'm like guesseyed guys, right, you know, of course. So everyone just big looks at me and I'm like guess what? Fucking everything you know. They expect you to figure it all out because I tell them and I might be the first person telling that they might know from prior experience but it's like, hey, outside of police activities, right, when someone calls 911, it gets defaulted to us 100% of the time, right, unless they say they have a gun. And even if they have a gun, we're still coming right. But like outside of the breaking and enterings and stuff like that, guess what 911, it's a fire service. It's insane.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, it really is. And again, I mean, I don't think that it's necessarily a bad problem to have.
Speaker 2:No, it's a good problem.
Speaker 1:But I do think that there needs to be some counterbalance to that as far as truly what the priorities of the fire service are, because otherwise it's not the fire service, no, correct like too.
Speaker 2:That's why I wholeheartedly believe that the fire service traditions are very important for those reasons too, because we just keep getting bombarded with more work, more responsibilities, more liability, everything else, and like, what do we have to fall back on? We have to fall back on our you know, the brother and sisterhood, right, all of our traditions, the uh, everything that we cherish and love. And that's when I hate that when, um, management, um, for different departments, try to make the fire department a business. We're not a business, we're a service. We are a necessity if you want to have businesses in your city, because that's what keeps them safe, you know. So we cost money, but, right, when you need us, we're always there.
Speaker 1:And we're there really freaking fast at all times of the day, all times of the night yeah, absolutely, man, and and and you're right because, like again, like I, just like you, I mean I'm I'm very into the traditions of the fire service. I think a lot of stuff is awesome. Um, these guys out there that say that stuff is buffy, I don't have time for, you't have time for you, because I don't think you can be truly a great firefighter and not enjoy some of the traditions of the fire service. And what I mean by that is this Simply, if you look back to the first paid fire department fire department was the, you know, the union hose company in 1736, right? So? So ben franklin, that's ben franklin's fire company, right? Well, hey, man, like, what was the mission of, of, of that hose company in 1736? Like, the mission was to save lives and to save property. And if you fast forward to 2024, the mission statement for almost every fire department in the country is to save lives and save property.
Speaker 2:So it hasn't changed Right.
Speaker 1:So it's like dude, like that is the tradition of the fire service, that is the mission of the fire service, and all of our actions should be geared towards being mission driven beautiful. So yeah, man, that's that's. That's my take on on that, for sure all right.
Speaker 2:Well, listen, I I really want to get into, um, the georgia smoke divers and then after that I want to talk about your company, because I think that'll uh finish. Just finish us out on that training aspect. I really want to know what you guys do then, how you teach it differently and all the other fun stuff. But before we get to that, I wrote this down because I did not want to miss it. I'm very curious on this you talked about. So you're at a station that gets a booter we're rewinding about an hour here so you're at a station right that gets a booter every three months. So you're constantly a station right that gets a booter every three months. So you're constantly doing these drills. You get them all the freaking time. So what is your personal favorite booter drill? But, more importantly, why? And then what is it and if you can explain it to the audience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely, man, yeah, absolutely, we obviously, like I said earlier, it doesn't matter who you are, where you came from, what other stations you worked at your day one, you know, or almost off probation a week later. We do, we build people up the same way. I start everybody off the same way and we build everybody up because I think that we have an obligation to teach things with, with an expectation that's attached to it, with an expectation that's attached to it. And so, like I said, like we just finished talking about, hey, man, the expectation for the public should be the forefront of everything that we do. It's one thing I talk about is this, and it's kind of the setup for getting into the drill.
Speaker 1:But, hey, man, I live in the city that I work in, right, so I live two miles from a fire station. I know those guys that work two miles away from me. Um, obviously I don't work there, but I've trained some of those guys. I know those guys. Um, I have a three and a half year old daughter at my house. So when my house is on fire and my three and a half year old daughter is trapped inside, I know exactly what I expect out of that company that's going to be first into my house, correct, and and so what I impart on my crew is hey man, there is nobody in this world that I love more than my daughter. So I know what I expect, and and what I expect is I don't care what they have to do, they need to get in there and they need to get her out of there, right and so. So I'm not saying that, that that we need to be reckless or dangerous or not assess any risk, but what I am saying is that is the expectation, and so I want my crew and my company to respond to a structure, fire and search that structure with the same expectation that I have for my own daughter, because, while we don't know those people that we're responding to, they, just like I do or you do, love somebody in that house more than anything in the world, and so I kind of encourage that discussion with everyone, and we have those discussions because I think it's important to understand where you're coming from.
Speaker 1:And then the other side of that is so how do we do those things? Well, the thing is, we have to teach people how to search and have people teach people how to search properly, and some of that is breaking some habits that have been taught, like we talked about earlier. It just is what it is, man, be it IFTA standard, be it a state standard, be it whatever it is, there are habits that need to be broken. So my favorite drill that's a long way of saying my favorite drill what we do at the station I work at is a small station. Our living room and our kitchen is not very big, it's all in the same room and what we do is we we drag some beds in there, we like kind of rearrange the furniture and uh so, and we bought a little uh smoker, uh fog machine on amazon 50 bucks, nice, we put, we put that in there, we smoke it out and uh, this is.
Speaker 2:This is all at the house it's in the station.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love it, I love it, okay.
Speaker 1:So so what we do is uh, so my favorite drill with that is is make somebody do some type of task right.
Speaker 1:So we'll be like, hey man, you got uh, 10 up downs or a minute on the assault bike, whatever it is, but you get off, you gotta throw your bottle with gloves on, mask up for time, and then you make entrance into the building and there could be one victim in there, there could be six victims in there, there could be zero victims in there, but you have to get an all clear of those rooms as fast as possible.
Speaker 1:Nice, and you know we keep some guesswork into that, because I don't think it's fair for us in training to say all the time hey man, you know there's going to be three victims on this drill, right, we don't know Right, and and that's that's, that's training. In response to what happens on the actual fire ground. You pull up on on the fire ground and you know Mrs Smith in the front yard says, well, everybody's out of the house, but then you go in there and you find somebody it's like dude, like that happens. And statistically we know that that happens if you look at the surveys and stuff and the other way too.
Speaker 1:Right, like um. So you know, I, I, I, I. For me, that's absolutely my favorite drill. Um, cause that drill is something that we do. We try to do that drill once or twice every three months. So they get it once or twice, typically towards the end of their rotation.
Speaker 2:Okay so, I got you. I love that. That's why I said like you're doing it at the house. I think that's amazing, like you guys bought your own smoke machine right, so you're not like going to training trying to justify why you're trying to borrow a smoke machine to smoke up the house.
Speaker 1:You know like, so, yeah, dude, well, that's great, funny, funny story. Because we're we're setting up for this drill one day, and so we have this, this uh smoke machine running, we get an ems call um, and we're we're running this ems call with another company out the street. So we're standing there and the engineer from the other company's like, hey, man, uh, house fire or a structure fire just kicked out. And I was like, oh shit, where's the house? He's like, yeah, he's like, he's like your station. And I was like what you know? And what had happened was, uh, somebody had came to the station. The utility truck came to the station to fill up the, the sva bottles, and he and he and he went to walk in the he SCA bottles and he went to walk in. He's in the bay and he went to walk in and he opened the door and there's Florida Sea on smoke. So he shut the door.
Speaker 2:Smart fireman right there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he called it in at 3-1. Oh my God.
Speaker 2:That's hysterical.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I canceled the assignment and we get back there. And then, of course, he's like I just saved your station. I was like bro, I'm like it's fog.
Speaker 2:It's like so, yeah, oh, my God, that's amazing. So just to just to recap, there's a couple of things you said that I really want to drive home. It's so like you're saying, like alluding to your favorite drill, you're like hey, we're not being reckless, we're being aggressive, everything else right, we else right, we're, we're assessing risks, we're not eliminating it. I know you didn't say the not eliminate, but that's, that's a culture that we are actively fighting right now. Thank God that we're not really in that boat as much as some other departments across the nation right now, because I honestly feel, like your department, my department, we're, we're still fairly aggressive, um, but with that said, it's like, um, the the idea of we can eliminate risk is impossible in this profession. And if you feel like you come to work and hey, I know for a fact, I'm going to be a hundred percent safe and I'm going to go home tomorrow, like I wish that was a reality, but that's not a reality, like the oath you took says that you will risk everything to save a person right in need, well, and I think guys forget that, like it's, we are in a profession that requires us to have risk right and because of that it's. It's an amazing profession that not everyone can or should do.
Speaker 2:But with that said, right, we can never eliminate risk. But, um, we need to assess it. And if we assess it rapidly and with aggressive firefighting techniques, then the risk starts to go away Because, guess what, we put the fucking fire out right or we remove the victims from the building. If we do that in a rapid, aggressive manner, everything gets better faster. Just like you were saying on that first fire under your belt. Right, it was one of those things where it's like, hey, that's a long way. Now we have a rescue profile, we're not freaking, laying in because we know we got to go search right now. Right, we have enough water on the truck to knock down the body of fire, find the victim and get the hell out before crews start supporting us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, man. I mean that's obviously a conversation that we could spend, you know, the whole night talking about. You know, and I think you're right. I mean, I think where we work places that we work I think we do a very, very good job of you know, kind of teetering that line and obviously because of the command systems that were grown in our area, I think people do a good job of assessing risk. However, I do think that people can misinterpret some things and that risk can be taken out of context as well, because, at the end of the day, man, like everybody's risk assessment is different and what you may think is risky, I may think is normal behavior, right, and so there really isn't a way, I don't think to say like, hey, man, like these are the do's and the do nots, because, at the end of day, man like the worst thing that we could be as firefighters is robots and you don't want that. And so what we always talk about in training and I encourage is hey, man, to me the best firefighter is the most trained, the most educated and the most able to make independent decisions for the best outcome of the incident, and that's a firefighter that can, that can assess something and be like yeah, man, like, yes, we're going forward or no, we're not, and especially like in a relation to search, it's like hey, man. Like if you just define what searchable space is to you and you fall within those things, then, hey man, then I don't think that you're going wrong, you're not going rogue, you're not being overly aggressive, like to the point where it's catastrophic, right, like, yes, there's always a possibility that something bad could happen. But speaking about search, it's like hey man, like searchable space.
Speaker 1:So a lot of people, you know, do the whole survivability profile thing, which I am a hundred percent against Cause. I think that's completely wrong. Like you can't, like, like I just don't think that we can look at a building and be like, yeah man, somebody's alive. And like you have no freaking idea what's going on there, and you see people that survive, uh, structure fires that you pulled up, and you're like, dude, I didn't see one inch of building that wasn't covered in fire. Like, how are they alive? Versus going to, you know, a fire where it's like a room of contents fire and somebody's down the hall and and they're incapacitated and they don't make it out right.
Speaker 1:So, like, everybody's different because of that and so we can't serve. We can't profile anybody based on that. But what we can profile is can we search it? And to me that's hey, man, can I occupy the space with my training, my experience and my PPE? And if I have those three things in place, then I'm going to assess my risk properly and I'm going to make a good decision, right? And so, again it goes back to educating people to make good decisions, and everybody's different, right. So, like, a two-year firefighter is not going to be able to search space that a 12 or a 15-year firefighter should be able to search, right, because they don't have the training, as much training, and they don't have as much experience, but they have the same PPE. However, even in their own PPE there are limits.
Speaker 1:Like you're saying, you work as an RTO right now. So when you're putting your recruits into the flashover chamber for the first time, you're seeing guys that are squirming right, like they're like holy shit, it's hot in here, like I don't know if I like this first, and you're sitting in there like drinking a soda right, like it's like no big deal to you. So everybody's got a different take on all three of those things. But again, that's setting an expectation, man, having having parameters for how you're going to assess things and how you're going to move forward from those things. But I 100% agree with you, man. It's something I think about all the time. Why did I get into the fire service? Why do I love this job so much? What attracted me to it? Man and you took the words out of my mouth, man I 100% am attracted to the fact that I am willing and I'm able to do things that other people aren't willing to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's the biggest thing with the fire service the opportunity that we are allotted to do things that the public will think is just insane or would never have. The opportunity is crazy and that's what we get to experience because of this profession, right.
Speaker 1:This culture, this job A hundred percent man, and there's so much more that goes into that right. This culture, this job 100% man, and there's so much more that goes into that right. I mean that's something that, for me, as an individual, I've always prided myself. In playing sports and stuff, I had a coach when I was a kid who was like hey, man, if you want to play at the next level, you've got to be willing to do things that other people aren't willing to do.
Speaker 1:That puts it right there, yeah, deal there you go. That puts it right there. Yeah, Copy that man. So I've lived my life like that man and I and I and I truly believe that that's what. But but I I really think that, at the root of all of this stuff in the fire service, man, if people really understand what the public's expectations are of us and how we meet those expectations and what are you truly willing to do to meet those expectations, that would, that would put our fire service uh, way ahead and it would also drop a lot of ego, because because it's not just ego when we have ego, uh, too much ego creates incompetency, and I think when you, when you drop ego, you're creating more competent firefighters, because now they're not afraid to practice skills, to be vulnerable to, to learn something new.
Speaker 1:Dude, I mean, you know we kind of hit on it earlier, but it's like so you have ULFSRI with all their incredible information, right, you have Firefighter Rescue Survey that you know puts out all this data. In the city that I work in I'm not sure if your city does, my city does we have our own internal survey that mirrors the firefighter rescue survey and it's interesting because, um, firefighter rescue survey says that in in over 3 000 you know rescues, 45 of people are found in bedrooms. Well, in our city, our internal survey, it says that 55 percent of people are found in bedrooms. So should we be gearing our searches more towards bedrooms, because we know there's a 55% chance somebody's in there Like, yes, 100% Right, so you can use these things to make better decisions and to reduce risk in doing those things right. So if we go to the bedrooms and we isolate and we ventilate now I'm in a compartment, I have passive ventilation I'm, in a way, better spot than that dude down the hallway that's got a hose line by the fire is.
Speaker 2:Right or had to push through the front door and through the bulk of the fire to try to make his way to where he believes the bedrooms are, because he doesn't really know.
Speaker 1:you know, Right as oriented as we try to stay it's always easy to you know, get disoriented, especially on the nozzle making that first push, absolutely, man.
Speaker 1:So, again, like I think we have to use this stuff to our advantage because because it it will, uh, make an impact on the outcome for civilians and certainly for firefighters too, but that that's, you know, that comes down to, at the end of the day.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think, I think, the base for all this stuff, you got to have a high level of fitness in order to do the job. You've got to have an education which includes, just like you said, building construction size up, in addition to being able to make task level decisions and perform task level skills. So it's a complete package and it's not just one piece. You can't just say, hey, man, we're going to train on this and this alone, because I don't care how fast your mask up time is or how quickly you can stretch a line, if you don't know where that line goes and how you're going to get into the door and once that door pops, uh, that somebody could be behind that front door and we're going to go with that, that hose line and people are going to search the opposite direction, or whatever the case is, you can't put all the pieces together and we're not going to do what we need to do.
Speaker 2:Exactly and before we move on, you said it without saying the exact words, right, but we operate in the gray pretty much 100% of the time. The fire service does not have black and white. The only black and white we have are pretty much HR rules. Uh, but outside of that, you're, you're right, it's what. What is what does that building give you that day? What does that door present you that day? What does that room present you? You know what? What does the roof give you? It's all. It's all those situations.
Speaker 2:You can run a house fire in the same neighborhood um, that you just did last week and it's a completely different fucking call because it's different time of day, different fire load, different residents. You know everything's different. So it's like you can never say, well, I've been on this fire before. Like, well, you actually haven't right, this is a completely different fire. There's some nuance to it. It might be a very similar fire, right, which is most of our fires are.
Speaker 2:Typically, we all know in the fire service that we just call them our bread and butters, right, or 90% bread and butter fire, house fires. But they're not the ones that we need to train on, they're not the ones we learn on and everything else it's, it's all those others, but that's just how it is. So we operate in that gray. So tell us so, because, gray right, this is a huge gray, uh, I believe. So tell us about the Georgia Smoke Diver program. You're the first one from the state of Arizona right To go and graduate, which is a big deal. So can you please tell the audience a quick little recap, because I know most guys know what it is. But just a quick recap of what the Georgia Smoke Diver is. But more importantly, hey, why did you want to go Right? And then, what was that experience like while you're in? And then, did you feel like you received any benefits from when you went, when you left there graduating, to the day you're back at your department again working?
Speaker 1:yeah, absolutely, man. Um man, that george monk diver program, I, I, uh, I can't say enough, uh, positive things about it. It it completely changed my life as a firefighter. I think it changed my life and my outlook and my personal life. It's made me a better dad, a better person, a better friend, certainly a better firefighter and a better captain, a better leader, because of that program. So, yeah, man, for anybody that doesn't know, the real quick synopsis is it's a six-day class. Sixty hours is what they total it to. It could be a little bit more depending on how the week goes, but it's a very high level of physical condition that goes into it. It's very high level of physical conditioning that goes into it. But the premise is really focused around search operations and also around firefighter survival, raid operations, find their limits and then finding ways to problem solve and move past those limits so that they can, uh have the best outcomes, be that, again, with civilians or with with firefighters.
Speaker 1:Um, so I went to the class in 2021. Um, I went with another guy from my department. We worked at the same station. Um, he says that I'm number one because I'm older than him, but we'll agree to disagree on that. Uh, he says that I'm number one because I'm older than him, but we'll agree to disagree on that. Uh, but we both, we both went and uh so that. So both of us we applied three times.
Speaker 1:So for anybody that applies and they don't get in, like don't be discouraged by that um at all, because it is challenging to get into the program. Um, I, I know that right now, this year alone they had 500 or 550 applicants out-of-state applicants for the program and they only take about 40 out of that number per year. So there's a class in November and a class in February. So you get about 20 out-of-state applicants that are into the class in November and then another 20 that are in February. But, with that being said, oklahoma Smoke Diver Program, indiana Smoke Diver Program and coming soon in 2025 is the Colorado Smoke Diver Program, all of which are the same curriculum, a lot of the same instructors. So if you can't get into Georgia and you, I and you're interested in it, I certainly would encourage people to go to one of the other programs and in fact, we're going to go uh, we go back to Georgia every year as instructors in November, but we're going to start going to uh, colorado also cause we can drive there. So that was awesome, yeah, so I hope that there it creates a pipeline of people from our Valley that really want to want to do this thing.
Speaker 1:But so, yeah, we applied three times, didn't get in, didn't get in and then the last time we're like, hey, man, let's apply one more time. So we applied and we got in, and so when we got in, didn't know anybody spent to the program really didn't even know what it was about at the time. They didn't really have social media or anything at the time, so it was pretty minimal as far as what you could see on YouTube and stuff. It looked like there were some physical conditioning pieces to it, but we didn't really. I don't think we really understood what we were getting into.
Speaker 1:David Rhodes, who at the time was the head of the program he's still involved in the program but he's passed his role at that time to somebody else. But he's still very, very involved with the program. But David Rhodes knew someone that worked in our department. So he reached out to that guy and said hey, man, you got two guys from your department coming to this program. Please tell them that about 30% of the people that come here the first time, don't make it. So if they want to be successful, they need to be ready. Wow. And so we're like all right, so you got about 30% pass rate for out-of-state candidates on their first attempt, and I'm like it's like well, I don't even know what that means, you know, because you don't really know what you're getting into.
Speaker 1:And so, um, uh, cj Shrifles, uh was the guy that I went with, uh, one of my best friends. Uh, so we just kind of sat together and we're like hey, man, like what are we going to do? Um, and so we agreed. We said, hey, man, we're going to kind of set some standards for our ourselves, and the first standard that we have is we're going to be able to work out in gear for one hour without stopping, and if we can do that, we should probably be in a pretty good place to get to this program. So that's kind of what we said man, hey, one hour in gear minimum was the standard before we got there for us. And then the other thing was that we both said, hey, man, we are coming home in black shirts or we're coming home in an ambulance, and you have to have that mindset. And that was just us man. I'm not saying everybody thinks like that. I'm not saying that that's a requirement of the program, but to me I was just like hey, man, it's one or the other dude.
Speaker 1:There is no failure here like we will find a way to be successful. How long did it take you guys to get ready, or how much time did you have to prepare before you actually went to the program? I want to say that we got the email sometime in august. Sometime in august. Uh, we found out that we got into the program and it was the third week of November. So we we had about three months, three and a half months.
Speaker 1:So they, they say that there's there, there are people that have trained for years before they get there and I believe that, um, uh, you know, cause, cause, granted, the other half of the class is made up from people that are in state, from Georgia, and the process for them to get there is a little bit different. It's a it's actually for them they test into the process. For them to get there is a little bit different. It's actually for them they test into the process. So they will take a written test and then do a physical test and then they score you in the highest scores, get into the final.
Speaker 2:It's almost like getting a job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly Exactly. So, um, so, but, but out of state, because you're so far, um, it doesn't, it doesn't work exactly the same. So you still test in when you get there day one, you'll take a written test and then you take, then you do the physical test. Uh, the first day, but, um, but, but they don't make you do before you get there. So, um, but, yeah, man. So we went to georgia and, um, obviously, you know everything was new to us, and including the climate, because it's November in North Georgia and we're training in Arizona. So, yeah, you know that that that's a culture shock in itself, right, um, so you know, when your turnouts are are soaking wet and they don't dry, you're like, okay, probably should have brought another set of turnouts with me right like didn't think this one all the way through.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, but uh, but, yeah, man, they, they put you up in a hotel there and, um, you, you hit the hit the ground running day one and uh, you know the pt. Obviously that's what everybody focuses on. Everybody likes to talk about pt and and, um, you know, social media likes that stuff. And and you know, I mean, yes, the pt. And you know I mean, yes, the PT is difficult, like there's no doubt about that. You need to be physically prepared for that. But again, like they're not trying to hurt anybody, they're not trying to kill anybody in PT. What they're trying to do is they're trying to stress you out. Again, it goes back to that skill under pressure type of stuff. It's like they're putting pressure on you so that when they teach you something and you have to perform those skills, like you, you have to make a conscious choice to say, hey, man, how am I going to get through this? Because, because, if I wasn't tired, like it'd be no big deal for me to do this evolution right now, but because I'm tired and I've been doing this this for three days and I'm sore and I'm beat down and these guys are yelling at me. It's like dude, like focus on the task at hand. How do we get out of this situation? And yeah, man, I just I can't say enough good things about that program. It certainly was a catalyst for me in changing my mindset towards search. They gave a search class there on day one. It's a PowerPoint presentation that they give to you when you're eating lunch the first day and then they build off of that throughout the week in actual search techniques, search tactics, and then that leads up to later in the week when you're doing live fire evolutions and actually performing searches in there and they focus on truck search, ves, and then also engine-based search also. So it kind of hits on three different areas of search which obviously in our system. We're not a truck-based culture when it comes to search, so some of that stuff was brand new for us. But even the way that they teach you know movement and the communication pieces of those things, like man, like it was, it was just incredible and we soaked all that up. Um, you know it's.
Speaker 1:I think when you go through a fire academy, obviously you you make uh relationships and and with people and and that's the brotherhood and the sisterhood of the job. Some of those relationships carry on throughout your career. I will say that in a smoke diver organization that brotherhood, sisterhood is strong and stronger than anything I've ever seen. So in my smoke diver class we started with 45 people, we graduated 21. And I would say if not all 21, then 19 of 21 people are on a group text message and that message fires off. Probably, you know, once a week, twice a week, three times a week, depending, what's going on in the world. But guys are encouraging each other. Hey man, I'm up for promotion. Like hey, man, I'm going to go to this conference and you know wherever, hey who wants to go with me to this class. Like it is just incredible, the brotherhood and the sisterhood, like that camaraderie that comes with that. And again, when people achieve things together, you create something through struggle and I think that's what that is create something through struggle and I think that's what that is. But those are some of the finest firefighters but, more importantly, some of the finest people that I've ever met in my life. And we've had a chance to go back. Now CJ and I have gone back. This will be our third year in November going back as instructors and man, you're reconnecting with those people and having conversations, talking about challenges in your, in your department, their department, the fire service. It is just such a refreshing and incredible thing.
Speaker 1:Um and uh man graduated from that program.
Speaker 1:I mean it was. It was certainly a highlight for me. Um, so when we, when you graduate, david Rhodes uh, does like an exit thing with everybody and kind of asks people. He's like hey, I'm going to ask you this question and over the next few weeks we'll be reaching out to you through email and I want you to write down your response because we compile it and the amount of data they compile throughout the week is just incredible. It's like an incident command uh system like it is. It is ics like to the next level. They have a command van there. They're keeping track of people's hydration, they're keeping track of people's calories, they're keeping track of of how many times you go to the bathroom, how many times you fill up your water jug, how many times you x. It's just like dude. It is incredible to what level they have this thing valid in it.
Speaker 1:Um, but yeah, so at the end of the thing he said hey, man, like, I want you to give a review of of of the week and what you thought and how you prepared? Was your preparation enough? Did you think that you like it was going to be harder? Was it less? Was it more? Like what can be improved? I was like I am a captain in a very large municipal, busy fire department. I'm really into training. I train a lot. I work at stations that are busy companies. We go to fires. We train a lot individually, but I also travel and go to conferences and this kind of stuff. I was like I 100% felt like I was in day one, week one of fire Academy for six days straight here.
Speaker 2:Wow that, that intense, huh.
Speaker 1:Dude. I mean, it's just like it's so overwhelming because they're throwing so much information on you. Like, dude, we're going back to our room at night and we're keeping journals and we're just like just dude, writing hey man, this is how we package this firefighter to. Hey, hey, man, this is how we package this firefighter to. Hey, man, this is how we do a firefighter upstairs? Hey, in this situation is how we're gonna? You know, uh, buddy breed, hey, this is we're gonna do a mass change. It's just like, dude, you have just just pages and pages and pages of information and what's funny about that is that as a student, you're taking all that in and and uh, uh. But really, when you go back to the instructor, I think I learned way more as an instructor than I did as a student. So it's like it's just an incredible thing to be a part of man. Um, very, very fortunate, very, very humbled to be a smoke diver. Uh, I, I.
Speaker 2:I wear that very, very proudly.
Speaker 1:Um, so yeah, man, I can't can't say enough great things about it. And uh, yeah, arizona one and Arizona to uh, cj Shrifles. He graduated, we graduated the same time. So when you graduate, they give you a number, a Georgia number, and then a state number. So when I graduated, I was a Georgia number uh one one, zero, zero. Arizona number one. And then he's Georgia number one one, zero. Georgia number 1102. Arizona number two. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks, yeah thank you so much for sharing that story with us and educating guys that don't know about the program. Hopefully they're all going on Instagram right now and looking it up, but I mean I know I've personally looked into it and just jealous of the guys that have had the opportunity to go so far and it's definitely something on my bucket list I hope to accomplish. So thanks for sharing that. So, before we get to the questions for Season 1, I really want to ask you about your company. So we talked about it in the bio, right. So you said you're the founder and the co-owner of Priority Fire Training. You're the founder and the co-owner of Priority Fire Training, so tell us a little bit about your company and then really your main mission your main focus right now?
Speaker 1:Absolutely, man. Thank you for bringing that up. Really appreciate that. So, Priority Fire Training yes, we started that company. It's. The owners of the company are myself, CJ Shrifles, Arizona number two Number one and number two right there.
Speaker 1:Number one and number two, yep, and Josh Brooks, who we work with. He's a captain in our department. He was my engineer, actually, when I was a firefighter. I knew him before I got on the job and we've worked alongside each other for quite some time. We've traveled to some conferences together and stuff Phenomenal person. And so we you know, man, we're doing what firefighters do. The three of us are very engaged, we're into the job, we've traveled to some classes and conferences and we're learning information.
Speaker 1:And then we're coming back to our own department and I think what happened is we, uh, we just looked at at the organization that we're in and then in the in its entirety, the fire service in our area, in in the valley and in the state, and it's like man, like there's a gap here. There's a gap in in how much training should be provided. There's skill sets that can be developed and cultivated here and encouraged so that people really that are chasing that have an outlet to develop their skills and be better at their jobs. And I think that there's a way for us to do that, because right now there's pretty much zero to none opportunity for that stuff. And I will give some credit to Chris Slayer from from Mesa Dude. He's a, he's phenomenal and he really was the first person in this area that brought in outside training Right. He brought Niles forward here. He's ran the Copper State Fire Conference a few times Like he. He's done a lot of that stuff. But we kind of looked at it like. Looked at it like, hey, man, like how do we do this at like grassroots level and and what are we all about? And and how can we offer services to people? So, um, that's really where it came from, man. It started out as that.
Speaker 1:The reason it's called priority fire training, um, it's kind of a play on words, but number one, uh, was because of our, our tactical priorities, like what is most important to us. We know that life safety is number one and so we believe that wholeheartedly. We teach about that, we talk about that and we focus the skill sets around being able to provide the best service so that we can give somebody their best chance at life. So that's part of that. The other thing is that all three of us, um, we believe in family and we believe in in the brotherhood and the sisterhood of the job and and having your priorities straight, because it's very easy to get caught up in in, you know, traveling all the time and this and that, and like taking time away from your family. And so we were like, hey, man, like if we're going to do this, we are going to try to do it the right way, so that we can keep our priorities straight and we can teach that lesson to other people as well. So, um, so that was that was part of it too.
Speaker 1:Um, and then when you look at our logo that we made, there's a. The logo has three pieces of that logo that make up to us what we think the top three priorities for training are and the top three things that we like to teach about and talk about. So the logo for anybody that's listening, we don't have a website, but we have an Instagram so you can look it up at Priority Fire Training. But what it is, it's a skeleton wearing a helmet, he's got a rose in his mouth and then in one hand he has a halogen.
Speaker 1:In the other hand he has a nozzle smoothbore in fact, but that's another story.
Speaker 2:But the reason that we did that.
Speaker 1:Another podcast. Yes, yes, yes, another podcast, yeah. But the reason that we did that? Because to us those are the top three priorities for training. The top three skill sets that need to be developed are those three things.
Speaker 1:So the halogen is for forceful entry. If you can't force a door and you can't get in, then it really doesn't matter. Nothing else really matters anyways, right, because you got nothing unless you can get into the structure. So that was the number one priority. We recognize that culturally, in this area, there is not a high priority on forceful entry. So we saw that and we like that.
Speaker 1:And the next thing was the nozzle. Obviously, in order to put fire out, in order to create searchable space inside these structures, we need water, we need water on fire, and so we we saw a need for that. Obviously, nozzle forward is an incredible class, and so we kind of broke that down. Like I said, I mean, we designed and developed training for the, for our organization, but I focused, uh, water application, hose line, management, deployments, everything that goes into anything hose, line and nozzle. We're like, hey, man, we, we are really good at that stuff.
Speaker 1:We've taught that stuff a lot of different places. Like there needs to be a high priority on that, because being a really really good hoseman is a lost art and so we wanted to encourage, encourage that. So that's the second piece, second priority, and then the last piece, the rose through the skeleton, through the skull. That's a symbol for list, something that we believe in wholeheartedly, we teach and, yeah, man, still, and in the totality of that, that logo is a firefighter and so that goes back to that firefighter safety piece teaching RIT stuff, teaching Mayday stuff, teaching ways to package people and kind of having that next level of firefighter safety built into some of the training that we do. So those are all the priorities that we thought were important and kind of why we put it together.
Speaker 2:I love it and thanks for sharing that with you. And just so I make sure I have it correctly, it will be in the notes for this episode so they can find you currently just on Instagram. Is that correct, and what's your Instagram handle?
Speaker 1:It's Prior priority fire training.
Speaker 2:Perfect. So, yeah, find them on Instagram, dm them if you have any other questions. Like I said, another great resource, and that's what this is all about Just making resources available to everybody to just answer questions. Get better in the train. So listen, skip, we've been talking for a long time, brother. So, with that said, are you ready for a wrap it up and we'll get into the questions for season one? Let's do it All right, brother. So question number one so the why? So we asked this to the guys get hired. We asked this to guys already on the job, trying to promote or even just a different job within the organization they work for. But this, why is so? Why? Why did you decide, hey, I want to be a fucking fireman. What was? Was there something that happened?
Speaker 1:Was it a when'd you get bit by the bug? Oddly enough, man, I mean, I think I actually got bit by the bug when I was about two years old. You know it's like I grew up in Baltimore city, a very rich fire tradition there. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And it's kind of one of those things where, like when I was a kid man, I have an older sister, my mom and I would drop my sister off at school and we'd grab breakfast and then we'd run by one of the fire stations and look at the trucks and that kind of thing and I was just kind of like I always was intrigued by that. You know, don't even really know how that started, why my mom started doing that with me, uh, but I uh certainly was very, very intrigued by that. At an early age I got into sports. I got away from that, um, and so I was very fortunate in my sports career. I played hockey and I played collegially and then I played professionally for a couple years. I had the last.
Speaker 1:The last couple of years I was playing I was overseas in Germany and when I came home from that I really was lost man. I really didn't know what to do, what I wanted to do, and oddly enough, I I was given some lessons to a kid whose dad was on the job in the city that I now work and he was we're talking about it and he said why don't you come by the station? And I said, okay, so it's like I walked into the station and, uh, I was right then and there it was like I need to do this, nice and, and so I kind of hit on it earlier. But, like you know, being team oriented, having a group of people that are pulling together for a common goal training, you know, and are all things that I was very, very drawn to. And the biggest thing is man is that I think that I've always kind of had a heart of service where I've wanted, I've wanted to give back to people and wanted to serve people.
Speaker 1:But I really didn't know what that was about or how to do that. And the fire service gave me that piece. And once I figured out that that's what it was about for me, I mean that just took me to a whole nother level of desire to do the job. And, like I said, I mean I had a coach told me when I was a kid uh, hey, man, if you want to get to the next level, you have to be willing to do things that other people aren't willing to do. And I and when I look at the fire service man, I'm like, hey, man, I am willing to do things and able to do things that other people aren't willing to do, and that's why I want to be a firefighter.
Speaker 2:Oh, dude, I love it. And the greatest part about that question is everyone's answer is so different. So it's cool to get a little insight. Like, literally, the brothers back east right in Baltimore City or you know, was your first exposure as a small child, that's, you know. It's amazing. And now you're literally across the country from those guys right doing the fucking same job. That's amazing. All right, so now we know the why. So what about the who? So who has been the most influential person so far in your fire service career? Doesn't have to be a fireman, right, but who has influenced you for your fire service career the most as of today?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely man. Uh, I mean I could go a lot of different ways with this, but, um, I am going to say, uh, captain reuben savadra, uh is my most influential person thus far in my career. He was, uh, what's the why? Yeah, man, well, he, like I said, I mean he was my, my, uh, probationary captain on my second rotation, and I think that that he really set the stage for me as far as saying like, hey, man, it's okay to be great at this job, it's okay to be really into this job because, again, like I I was uh, you know, I I felt like when I got in the job, like I I was, I was wanting more.
Speaker 1:Right, it's like. It's like I want to train, I want to go to fires, I want to learn this, I want to learn this, I want to learn this, I want to learn this, I want to learn this. And he harnessed a lot of that for me and he's given me a lot of really great lessons throughout my career. I talk to him weekly or a couple times a week, and I think some of the lessons I've learned from him are not just about fire ground stuff, but also in the way that you treat people and the way that you build relationships with people and the way that you handle adversity when it comes your way in our organization or in the fire service. He is an incredible person. He's got a great family and it's kind of crazy because when I got on the job, his son was just a little kid, I mean, and he's now a freshman at Air Force Academy right now.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's super super cool. Is uh. Is he still in the job?
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's, he's, he is still the job, yeah, so so, so he's still a great resource for me.
Speaker 1:But, um, I think some of the biggest lessons I learned from him is that, like hey man, he created a culture of high achievers, so he and and he was never afraid to be vulnerable, to say, like hey man, like I'm not in as good a shape as you guys, but yet we're still going to go do stairs today, right, like, and that was something that the lesson I learned and everyone that I worked with when I was on probation there, uh, is now a captain.
Speaker 1:So, like six or seven guys that were there at the time, every one of those guys is a captain or a chief, and I think that speaks to who he is, because everybody was under his tutelage. And, again, I think that kind of was a springboard for me into getting outside of the organization and trying to educate myself and learn more and developing other relationships and, like I said, I mean like guys like Kevin Fleur and Tom Hollick and David Rhodes, and it's like these guys that I have relationships with are because of lessons that I learned when I was on probation. So, um, yeah, he's definitely, uh, most influential for me thus far.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. All right, well, so we know the, the, the, why, the who, right. So fire, fire department traditions we talked about them kind of briefly in the beginning, right? So what is your favorite fire department tradition right now?
Speaker 1:uh, I mean, we already talked about a little bit, but to me, uh, my favorite tradition fire service is the mission itself. I I just think that you, you cannot wholeheartedly be an end of the job go-getter fireman and not wholeheartedly believe in the mission of saving lives. Right, and again, like I'm not saying that we're going to save everybody, but what we do exist to do is to give everyone the best chance possible to survive. And you know, I think that one thing that we have to realize is that time is our greatest commodity, and if we can give somebody more time, time to say goodbye to a loved one, time to go to their son's last baseball game, time to go to a wedding time, to go to a birthday time, to give them anything that otherwise they wouldn't have gotten, I think that that, to me, is the most incredible gift.
Speaker 1:And to me, that is the true tradition of the fire service, because that's exactly what it's been doing. As I said you know, ben Franklin, when they started, that union owes company. I mean, that's what it was all about. So, on a global scale, that's it for me. But on a local scale, the people that work in my organization will know corned beef tacos.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, wait back up for a second. Did you say corned beef tacos? Yeah'm sorry, wait back up for a second. Do you say corned beef tacos? Yeah, yeah, yeah so sounds horrible, I hate to say it right?
Speaker 1:well, so, so right. So you work in a fire right next to mine, you don't?
Speaker 2:know what it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the reason that like that, I like that tradition, is because it's a labor of love, right, and so you work.
Speaker 1:It's when I worked at one of our uh, very busy stations.
Speaker 1:I worked there as a firefighter for four and a half years and every friday we made that meal.
Speaker 1:So the whole thing about that meal was it takes all day to make it because guys, everybody's in the kitchen shredding, shredding the meat, you know, smashing the potatoes, mixing it all, making the mix, stuffing the tacos, frying the tacos, grilling the tacos, and then the best thing about that is that the whole deal is like no utensils. So you foil the tables for foil on tables, lay out you know 200 tacos and everybody just goes to town and the fellowship that comes with that is incredible. And and it goes way beyond that, because there's plenty of times where, like we have, we make tacos like that and then we catch a fire in the middle of night. You come back at four in the morning, guys are eating corned beef tacos, sitting around, talking about the fire, having that fellowship, having a good laugh, and so to me, like it was just, it's just one of those things. It's like you can't talk about tradition for me in my organization without talking about that, and so yeah, man, that'd be my local tradition.
Speaker 2:There you go. So you heard it here first corn beef taco. You know, you actually struck a little chord with me because my first excuse me where I cut my teeth in the fire service, my first department was back east in the Baltimore region. Right, and we always would do probably once a a month at least do just a big old fucking thing of blue crab. Right, and we all had picnic tables at all the houses and we just line them up with paper, you know, steam them, cook them and throw them on there, and it was the same thing. It was just a fellowship. You know, everyone's sitting around a picnic table covered with newspaper, right, cracking shells, um, eating crab and just hollering at each other. Right, and it sounds like the same thing, just with corned beef tacos.
Speaker 1:I love it. Yeah, absolutely man, absolutely man. That's really where I think you know we talk about the brother or the sister. But I think really what that comes down to is the more intimately that you know someone, that in a time of need that you will be willing to do anything that you can for that person, because of how intimately you know them. And those are the times that you have these conversations with those people and really get to know those people on a different level, and that's why that is such an important tradition for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's crazy too, but I mean, everyone listening to this is is on the job or either just got on the job or thinking of getting on the job and things along those lines. But you know, what the public doesn't understand is like they know what we will do for a complete stranger, but they have no idea what we will do for one of our brothers, Like, and that's why, to a fault sometimes, like we will, you know, we will go in certain circumstances which are uninhabitable, to try to find a brother, just because of that bond that you're talking about. I mean, we'll risk anything for a civilian, but we'll literally risk it all for one of our brothers, 100%. I'm sure you feel the same way.
Speaker 1:Absolutely man. And again it comes down to risk management that we talked about earlier. But it's like there's a guy that works on my crew right now. Um, I helped him get on the job. Uh, he's worked with me at my station now for for a couple of years and, um, you know, he's a, he's a good friend of mine. I vacation with him. Uh, my daughter is the same, around the same age as his two sons and and so, like you know, I know him intimately, you know.
Speaker 1:And so we had a fire about a year ago, year and a half ago, and I mean I don't think I've been on very many fires where I was worried interior. You know what I mean. But there was just something about this fire. I mean, just there's a ton of fire, not a lot of heat, but just like fire is as tall and as wide as you can see, and it's in a commercial structure. And you know, I'm getting reports from the chief and he's like, hey, noah, he's like it doesn't look good. He's like he's like I think we're going to pull you out.
Speaker 1:And it's like one of those moments for me where I looked at what was happening in there. I looked at the back of his helmet and I saw his name and I told myself I was like Noah, you need to make a decision. That's the right decision because, at the end of the day, there are consequences to the decisions that we make. And you know him, you know his family, you know his wife, you know his kids. Don't make the wrong choice. Yeah, and, and so it's like man, like nobody wants to go defensive, nobody wants to pull out right, and ultimately we didn't. We ended up staying interior because, as that's all kind of happening, uh, we started to get a good handle on it and like things changed very quickly, but it's like you're having that conversation and that all comes back to you know how well you know somebody and what you know about that person. So, yeah, you're right, man, like like you, you will do anything possible to keep the people you care about safe or to get them out of a situation when they need you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, All right. Well, all right. So last question this is actually my favorite question for multiple reasons. So it's not a tradition question, right? But it's not a tradition question, right? But it's directly related to the fire service. So if you could snap your fingers right and through FM fucking magic, something changes right Through zero sweat equity, and it's immediate change. But it can only be one thing. What would it be? But, more importantly, why would you choose that thing?
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, just going back to what we're saying we've been talking about for the last couple hours. But if I could snap my fingers I would remove the ego from the fire service. Oh, love it. So why?
Speaker 2:What's your why for the ego? I know we've talked about it, but let's just drive it home.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I think that ego in the fire service at all levels doesn't allow us to be as competent or truly as professional as we need to be, and I think that if we would just take a step back and be vulnerable sometimes and look at ourselves and be like, hey, man, there are things to learn here, or hey, we can improve on this. The old adage of, well, hey, man, we've been doing it that way and it's always worked for us, or the one that I hate the most is, well, I've never been to a fire, it's never gone out Right, and you're like and I'm like cool man, like call the water department and have them protect exposures and take away your salary, then I guess, because, like, we don't need you, right? So, like, if we could take away some of our ego when it comes to, uh, creating change in the fire service, I think that that everyone would benefit. Most importantly, the civilians benefit, but also the fire service, the firefighters benefit, because we're going to be operating at a way higher level and, as an example, it's like hey, man, like I'm sure you see it, uh, I see it too, but it's like you have a guy with, uh, you know, let's just say 20 years on the job and he's a backseat firefighter and so, like, when it comes to training, that guy's like oh, I don't need to pull hose, man, I'm good, I got 20 years of this shit, I don't, I don't need that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's like, bro, put your ego aside, because at the end of the day, man, like, we can still develop skill sets, you can still improve. And if we just focus on basic stuff, man, like hey, hey, like there is something to learn, and in fact, you might enjoy it, and then turn around like, hey, man, I have something to teach. And so if you don't remove ego when it comes to that stuff, I don't think that we can continue to advance. And like we're saying like, hey, man, like, look at the statistics right now. When it comes to that stuff, I don't think that we can continue to advance. And like we're saying like, hey, man, like, look at the statistics right now when it comes to Project Mayday, when it comes to search stuff, when it comes to you know, a lot of the things that are trending right now.
Speaker 1:But we have data and we have science that backs up how we should be acting, how we should be performing tactically, task level skills that we should be practicing. And guys are still resistant to that because their ego is getting in the way of that, and that's at the strategic level. Right, that's at the strategic level where people don't want to put policies in place or change policies because of that stuff. But most of that, I think, is at that task level where, well, we've never done that before, so we don't need to do that now.
Speaker 2:Right. So to me that's my biggest, that's my pet peeve, Like we've always done it this way.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool, you know right. Yeah, matt. So so in the end of the day, man, I think if we can remove ego and admit that we're not good at something, we're going to learn more, we're going to train more, we're going to grow more and in turn, we're going to be better, we're going to be safer, we'll be more efficient, we're more effective and that's a way better fire service. At the end of the day, I love it.
Speaker 2:Well, listen, we're at. We're knocking on the door of two hours right now. I know we could talk for another two, so we'll just we'll, we'll sidebar everything for another episode and we'll pick a great one of your topics from your company. How's that sound for the next time?
Speaker 1:Awesome man. I really appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely Well, listen. Thank you so much for your time, your knowledge, right, just preaching the good word and encouraging guys. Right, it's okay to freaking love the job. That's what this podcast is about. Not only is it okay to love the job, but guess what? Freaking learn something right and, more importantly, teach it to the guy underneath you. Right, just keep spreading the knowledge. There is no pride in holding on to something. To be the guy and what Skip said pretty much the entire episode, and then you round it off with it. Drop your fucking egos right, leave them at the door, learn something new every single day and just go out there and be the best freaking fireman you can be, and I bet you, your job would be a lot more enjoyable. So again, brother, thank you so much for spending with us. It's been, it's been a pleasure on my end, for sure. And is there anything you want to leave the audience with before we we roll out?
Speaker 1:No man, I appreciate the opportunity. Just, you know, the fire service is an incredible thing and it will take you to incredible places and and meet incredible people that you get to do awesome stuff with, uh, if you let it, so enjoy it and, uh, make the most of it, because it certainly goes by very fast.
Speaker 2:So thank you very much. I love it. All right, my brother will listen. Uh, thank you again and everyone else will catch you on the next episode. Have a great night, thank you. Thanks for joining us. Always remember, the most important grab you'll make in your fire service career is saving a complacent firefighter from themselves. Catch you next episode.