Live From Fire Rescue International

We are recored live from the floor of FRI in Kansas City, Missouri!

We tackle the importance of Standard Operating Guidelines (SOGs) aimed at refining fire service operations. By tailoring these SOGs to fit your organization's needs, you can streamline your workflow and boost effectiveness. To help us navigate this topic, we have Shane Ray from the National Fire Sprinkler Association, who shares keen insights on managing fires in large buildings and the role of SOGs.

We then pivot to a discussion on the significance of grants for Blue Card certifications, Fire Command Training, and equipment procurement for command vehicles. We provide you with practical advice on how to secure these grants and offer our assistance for your grant applications. Also, we'll fill you in on the upcoming Hazard Zone Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio. Rich Merritt of Digital Combustion also joins us to unveil the latest advancements in fire simulation software. So, buckle up and join us on this enlightening journey through the world of fire service operations and training.

This episode features Josh Blum and John Vance.

We want your helmet (for the AVB CTC)! Check this out to find out more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg5_ZwoCZo0

Sign up for the B Shifter Buckslip to get those free SOG's: https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/fmgs92N/Buckslip

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The Hazard Zone Conference is back!  Register here: https://www.bshifter.com/SelectBlueCardCommand.aspx?view=ViewDetail&eventguid=4175bda2-0c68-4cbf-b6be-81a8a2adf052

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#bluecard #firefighter #FireCommand #FireCommander #incidentcommand #BShifter #Brunacini #FireChief #FireDepartment #IC #8FunctionsOfCommand 

This episode was recored in KCMO on August 18, 2023.

Transcript

Speaker 2: 1:17

Alright, welcome to B-Shifter John Vance, josh Bloom and we are live at FRI Kansas City, missouri. Last day Our booth is packing up here in just a couple hours so, if you were able to make it out, it was really good to see all the new blue card users, old blue card users, potential blue card users, the B-Shifters out there, the people reading the Bucs Slip and listening to the podcast. It's been a great few days here in Kansas City so it's been a good visit. We had a lot of questions, josh, people asking the ops chief kind of questions. Some of that has to do with implementation of SOGs, because we're rolling out these SOGs right now.

Speaker 2: 1:56

In the B-Shifter Bucs Slip there's eight different ones. We did one last week. There's a new one coming up next week. If you want to subscribe to the B-Shifter Bucs Slip, it's our official newsletter. It comes out every week. It's for incident commanders and fire service leaders. We have these free SOGs. We had command, we had division operations. We're going to do a Mayday SOG. It's all coming your way. We're saving you a lot of work. But the conversation at the booth has been how do you implement it? What's the best way to get these SOGs into the hands of your firefighters and you start training on them and implementing them as a department. Put your advice on that.

Speaker 3: 2:35

And so the SOGs we've released so far, you know the Command SOG, the platform, foundation, footer, right for all the other SOGs we're going to push out, lines up with the tactical boss SOG, lines up with the accountability SOG that's getting ready to come out, lines up with the air management SOG and all the other SOGs we're going to push out. So really you've got to start with that Command SOG, go through it, figure out what works for your organization and how it fits. You know, really starting with deployment. So within that SOG we pushed out already for command, it has in there, you know, number one to define your standard deployment. What does that really look like? How many resources do you have available? What can you really do in your area? Because you can only do the work that you have the people available to deploy. So you know it kind of starts there.

Speaker 3: 3:27

And then you know most people use some kind of committee or whatever when they're building their SOGs. So you know, just going through what we've put out as the platform with your committee, you know, gives it that, you know, foundation, and then you can have a discussion and really refine the SOG to fit your organization and then once you make sure it matches what you want to do and how you deploy, then that's when you're really ready to push it out. And then it lines up with the blue card system, right. So what we do with blue card as far as training, has to line up with that SOG. So every SOG we're pushing out, we have a piece of our program that lines up with training. And it's interesting, we're gonna talk about Big Box but Shane Ray just walked up to the booth right now from the National Fire Sprinkler Association. So you know that's fantastic and we're gonna be pushing out a Big Box SOG, you know, towards the end.

Speaker 3: 4:19

But again, all the SOGs that we have and that we're gonna push out, we provide, you know, the training component to go along with that. And, as we have said, you can't have an SOG and not train on it and you can't have an SOG that's not applicable to your organization. So I can't work at a four station fire department and take somebody's 35 station SOG and think it's gonna work for me if I have three person staffing and they have four person staffing and my response times are different and really my geographic area is different when it comes to my risk. So it starts with that? What is the risk in the community and what does that look like, right? So?

Speaker 2: 4:57

we're gonna. This is gonna keep going. We've got a few more weeks of SOGs coming out. You gotta subscribe to the Buckslip to get them. If you don't subscribe, you can find that link in the show notes to get onto that Now. Shane Ray's here. Chief, how's it going? Bud, you wanna sit down and talk to us for a second? It'd be great going and grab that microphone there. How's your time been at RFRI so far?

Speaker 1: 5:19

It's been an honor to sit up there on the stage today with Dr Lori Moore-Maryland doing the things she's got going on. And speaking of SOGs, you know we all need them. We need to keep honing them. Well, when we do the program with Big Box, we talk about NFPA13E, which is the recommended practices for how you operate and build and protect with automatic sprinklers. 1620, with pre-plans, nfpa1620 and NFPA1700. The ISFSI is out there doing great work with training on 1700. You all use that and blue cards. So it's all good stuff. It's an honor to be here. Thanks for being with you guys. I think we're gonna have a little fire, we're gonna burn up in Minnesota so we can bring all the fire departments in and say this is how you function, that's what we build, that's what you build the SOGs around, right? When do I turn it off? When do I not turn it off? When do I know the fires under control? So all good stuff. It's great to be with you guys.

Speaker 2: 6:13

We're looking forward to you being at the conference October 5th and 6th. You're gonna keynote. What are you gonna be talking about? What can people look forward to when they see you in October?

Speaker 1: 6:22

Yeah, we're gonna be talking about these big fires and these big buildings. We're gonna talk about fires and all kinds of buildings. We're gonna bring our live burn demonstration unit and our valve trailer out there so that you can put your hands on the systems, you can pump it, you can use the stand pipe. A fire apparatus operator could know it's like all right, I'm pumping this thing at 150, and I can see it and I talk to the incident commander and let him know. We're going to create some scenarios that says all right, something went wrong, what happened? How do you identify that? No, so be a great time. Looking really forward to getting there, spending time with good friends, excellent.

Speaker 2: 6:58

Well, we appreciate you. We appreciate the partnership that we have with the National Fire Sprinklers Association. You guys are doing good work. You're getting out everywhere, so it's really good that you're spreading the word. You do it in a way that we understand in the fire service and you're sharing a lot of knowledge with us too, because I think this is going to make a huge difference. Thanks for coming to the conference. Is there anything else you want to throw out there?

Speaker 1: 7:20

I just want to say thank you to you all. It's like these systems the buildings keep evolving, the systems keep evolving and we've got to keep up. So we're just trying to partner and work with the fire services. I always have, and thank you all for spreading the word and keep up the good work out there.

Speaker 2: 7:34

All right, chief Ray thanks All right back at FRI and we're with Rich Merritt from Digital Combustion, and Digital Combustion is the platform that the blue card Sims are actually played on. You might know it through that, but you can actually create your own simulations, too with Digital Combustion, and you're going to be at the conference with us on October 5th and 6th in Cincinnati for the 2023 Hazard Zone Conference, so we look forward to having you there. It's been about two years since we had you on the podcast. What's new with you guys?

Speaker 4: 8:05

Well, we've been like always. We're always working on the software, trying to make things better and more realistic, and we've since released Fire Studio 7. So that's out, it's got a lot of new fire and smoke. Specifically, a lot of the fire assets that you have now are beams, burning beams, cross members, windows, fire coming out of windows. That can be pretty easily put in any kind of building because you can move the direction and get it looking pretty darn real now. So it's just like always, we're trying to make it, take it to the next level of realism.

Speaker 2: 8:39

That's cool. As far as learning how to use this, I know you guys have had different formats and, like my department, right now we're looking to train some people on building simulations. How does one go about learning how to build a sim, to do it efficiently and make great looking sims for your department?

Speaker 4: 8:57

Well, a few different ways. I mean, initially, when you initially purchase the software, we steer you right toward our website where we have a tutorial page, and that tutorial page has a lot of how-to videos on it, from installing the software, activating it and then all the way making your first simulation, adding custom backgrounds, adding additional content, and from there it'll snowball into whatever skill set you need. You can look at the more advanced videos.

Speaker 2: 9:24

How much time does it take to learn how to do this? I mean, if you were starting brand new, didn't really know much about how to build a simulation, how long would it take for you to get somebody up to speed?

Speaker 4: 9:35

Well, we have an online class that you can take, and so, if you signed up for an online session, it's basically like a Zoom class, where you're going to be working with an instructor one-on-one.

Speaker 4: 9:46

He's going to be sharing his screen with you, and those classes are in two-hour increments and you can take just a two-hour class like a beginning class and you can add as many modules as you want.

Speaker 4: 9:56

But initially, if you take that two-hour class, that's going to get you really up to speed quickly, where you can start building Sims, and then, once you start using the software, you're going to just intrinsically know more things just by using it, and so that two-hour class is a really good place to start. Excellent. I'm looking forward to coming to the conference in Ohio and we're going to just at the class that I'm putting on. It's going to be talking about that, because a lot of the blue card users they're using your simulations, obviously, but then, once they want to get to that next step where they want to create their own, we're going to just talk about how you go about doing that, what the instructor edition of the software is all about, and I'll show you a lot of examples and different ways that you can use it in your own department to make your own simulations and it'll be a pretty laid-back but fun class.

Speaker 2: 10:46

Nice. Looking forward to your class. Looking forward to seeing you in Cincinnati October 5th and 6th at the Hazard Zone Conference. Thanks for the partnership. You guys have been great. It's been 15 years of working with digital combustion if you can believe that but you guys have been awesome to work with and we really appreciate you being partners with Blue Card.

Speaker 4: 11:05

Well, it's been a great thing for us, and we've met a lot of your great instructors out there. Every class that we teach or when we come to these shows its blue card is everywhere, and so we're honored to be a part of it. Excellent Thanks, rich. All right, thank you, john.

Speaker 2: 11:20

Well, here at FRI we're getting a lot of people coming up talking to us about their grants. We've learned some East Coast departments that are getting some big blue card grants. We can help people with that. What's the process of getting help to put in a grant for blue card and fire command training?

Speaker 3: 11:40

We have had a lot of traffic at the booth with people who've gotten grants or who have asked about the grants or what does that look like for the application, so we can definitely help you with that. When it comes to the verbiage, so you could email us Josh at BShiftercom or Jeffrey at BShiftercom either one of those or if you go to our website, there's a direct link that you could email to ask about grants. If you pay attention to the podcast and the buck slip, we're probably going to do something here coming up pretty soon on grants. So kind of just a little tutorial. What does that really look like?

Speaker 3: 12:12

It's just for AFG grants either, but we've gotten people who have had local grants or rotary club grants or their state EMA has given them a grant for blue card or to sustain blue card. So just pay attention to that and watch for that. It'll probably end up on our YouTube site so you can always have it available to you. But here at the booth I think we've had six agencies come up that have gotten notification in the last two cycles of getting their AFG grant to either sustain blue card certification or to start the process. So a couple of agencies that are three or four stations and an agency came up that's got 41 fire stations. So they're getting it to certify their incident commanders and all of their ride up officers, acting officers in the blue card command certification program. So we can help with that. Just reach out to us.

Speaker 2: 13:08

And it's not just the cost of the program. These grants are covering other items as well, like a CTC in a box, other electronic things that you might need to do that kind of training with folks.

Speaker 3: 13:20

So when you do some of these grants, afg has some parameters in there, but when you're doing certification programs no different than when you're sending people to paramedic school you're usually pretty successful with getting a grant for those things that are certification based training programs.

Speaker 3: 13:43

And then locally we have a bunch of fire departments that have gotten, like I said, their local rotary club or VFW or whatever has given them money to buy equipment. Or we've even had some people who've had some local car dealerships donate or help them to get a command vehicle prop that they could have available at their command training center that is just the cab so that they could exercise that and train on. What does it really look like and feel like when I'm sitting in the car running an incident? So maybe not during the certification part, but as the ongoing piece goes as far as maintaining certification, doing CE, having people operate where they really do. So there's tons of money out there and available. You just got to be willing to go after it and we can help you with those things. So reach out to us.

Speaker 2: 14:30

Just a reminder. The Hazard Zone Conference is coming up October 5th and 6th right outside Cincinnati Ohio. It's easy to get to and you can still sign up. Get your people registered. We have some hotel blocks left. Go to BShiftercom for registration, anyone want to thank everyone for stopping by and seeing us at FRI and also thank you for listening to BShifter. We'll talk to you soon.