This episode features the wise insights of Battalion Chief Steve Lester of the Cobb County Fire Department. Steve brilliantly decodes the role of competence, confidence, and control in successful fireground operations, emphasizing the indispensable role of practice and experience. Hear about how the Blue Card system has been instrumental in sculpting proficient incident commanders.
This episode also 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
Shop B Shifter here: https://bshifter.myshopify.com
The Hazard Zone Conference is back! Register here: https://www.bshifter.com/SelectBlueCardCommand.aspx?view=ViewDetail&eventguid=4175bda2-0c68-4cbf-b6be-81a8a2adf052
Please subscribe and share. Thank you for listening!
#bluecard #firefighter #FireCommand #FireCommander #incidentcommand #BShifter #Brunacini #FireChief #FireDepartment #IC #8FunctionsOfCommand
This episode was recorded remotely on August 30, 2023.
This episode features the wise insights of Battalion Chief Steve Lester of the Cobb County Fire Department. Steve brilliantly decodes the role of competence, confidence, and control in successful fireground operations, emphasizing the indispensable role of practice and experience. Hear about how the Blue Card system has been instrumental in sculpting proficient incident commanders.
This episode also 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
Shop B Shifter here: https://bshifter.myshopify.com
The Hazard Zone Conference is back! Register here: https://www.bshifter.com/SelectBlueCardCommand.aspx?view=ViewDetail&eventguid=4175bda2-0c68-4cbf-b6be-81a8a2adf052
Please subscribe and share. Thank you for listening!
#bluecard #firefighter #FireCommand #FireCommander #incidentcommand #BShifter #Brunacini #FireChief #FireDepartment #IC #8FunctionsOfCommand
This episode was recorded remotely on August 30, 2023.
Welcome to this B-Shifter John Vance, josh Bloom and today, a very special guest. We've got battalion chief Steve Lester of the Cobb County Fire Department. He is going to be one of our presenters of the 2023 Hazard Zone Conference and we also have featured Cobb County a lot in the past with some of the radio traffic that we feature from the Blue Card Department. Chief Lester, tell us a little bit about Cobb County first of all, and how you operate there with your department.
Speaker 1:Well, first off, john, let me just say thanks for having me on the podcast. This is a great opportunity to showcase what we're doing here in Cobb County and talk about what I'm going to be doing at the conference. Just to give you kind of a rundown of Cobb County Fire Department we developed in 1971, came together as several districts that was previously volunteer came together as a paid department in 1971. We currently have 29 stations servicing unincorporated Cobb County. We also work alongside three other city departments within our jurisdiction where we have automatic and mutual aid agreements with. I think the last time we looked at the population was around 700,000, I believe, in the county and we have about 700 employees currently operating in operations.
Speaker 3:Now, how many fires are you guys going to on a regular?
Speaker 1:It's pretty typical throughout the nation, about 80-20, I would say 80% EMS and medical related and 20% structural, or probably 80% or 20% structural fires.
Speaker 3:Okay. Well, what we want to talk about today is command presence, command confidence, maybe a little bit of command confidence. These might be some of the things you're talking about at the Hazard Zone Conference on October 5th and 6th. Give us a preview of what your class is going to be about before we get into our main topic.
Speaker 1:Well, so my class that I'm presenting at the Hazard Conference is going to be basically a couple of case studies. I'll be looking at a successful rescue that we had back in August I believe it was of 2022. And then the other incident which, crazily enough, occurred on the same property a year beforehand, in November of 2021, where we had an apartment building that we had to make a strategic shift on. So we're going to be playing the audio from each one of those incidents, going to be breaking that down, looking at some division operations, looking at transfer of command, making that strategic shift, getting those people out and accounted for things of that nature. So it should be a pretty good discussion.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we look forward to it. It's going to be a great conference. If you have not registered already Bshiftercom it is the place for incident commanders, fire service leaders, while we charge our batteries, get a lot of knowledge, have some good networking and learn a lot over those two days in Cincinnati. So we are looking forward to that. So let's get into it. Command presence why is it important for us, as the IC, to have a presence on the fire ground?
Speaker 1:Well, I think it's of the utmost importance. You know, I mean, when you think about command presence in general, I think a good definition of that is probably really just the way that leaders present themselves to their people. You know, when I think about command presence I think back to the old John Wayne movies. You know, when you, when you you see John Wayne, any, whatever character he was playing in those days, he always had command presence. Whether he was a Green Beret Colonel or if he was a Marshal, or if he was commanding the cavalry, whatever that looked like, he always was on the screen with command presence.
Speaker 1:Another person that I would I could relate to that would be Denzel Washington. You ever watch any Denzel Washington movies. No matter what character he's playing, he always presents himself with with command presence. So, basically, what we're looking at with command presence, in my personal interpretation of it, I break it down to kind of like the three C's of command presence, and that being competence, confidence and control. You got to have all three of those things to have good command presence on the fire ground.
Speaker 3:Well, let's start off with competence, then. How do we become competent? First of all, as an IC. How do we develop it? How do we mentor that?
Speaker 1:Well, I mean with competence. I mean you know, first and foremost you've got to be good in the blue card world, that kind of what we would probably present that as well rehearsed, in the communications piece of Blue Card. That's why we go through the certification module, that's why we do the sets and reps Good initial radio reports, good follow-up reports, making those assignments using task, location and objective, making good command transfers, doing a strategic shift when you need to being prepared to do that. That's the competence piece of it. I think that's what's so important about the Blue Card program and that 40-hour online piece that we do is that it drives those things into your brain and it forces out those bad habits that you may have had in the past and makes you competent in the system. And most, I think I would say you know that most incident commanders out there, if they're not practiced and they're not well rehearsed, then that competence piece just doesn't show through.
Speaker 3:Aside from Blue Card, because it is an important tool in developing ICs. How else do we get the sets and reps for up-and-coming incident commanders?
Speaker 1:Well, I mean I could only speak from my personal experience, but you know it's just practice. You know it's kind of embarrassing to even say, but I mean I've even, like on my way to work in the morning, on the way to the station, you know, setting at a red light, pick out a building and just give an initial radio report, you know. Or practicing that command transfer, maybe a lot of talking to yourself, I don't know, maybe there's a mental health aspect there, I don't know. I don't know. But you know you've got to practice. You know, and like we were talking about with the 80-20, I mean we're just not going to fires like we were 20 and 30 years ago. So we have to have that training piece in place because we're just not getting the sets and reps and the practice by going to incidents.
Speaker 3:Then when we start talking about command confidence, what does that look like, sound like and what does it do for the fire ground?
Speaker 1:I think that's a two-fold confidence. That's not only a confidence in yourself and self-confidence as an IC, but you also got to have confidence in your people. I think confidence in yourself is probably the greater of the two you know. To have self-confidence as an IC, first and foremost you got to have knowledge. That's learning the command system or the blue card method. You got to have practice. We get that through running simulations, practicing drills like we talked about on the way, you know, looking at a structure, giving us a rate of report, things like that.
Speaker 1:And then there is that experience aspect of self-confidence, you know. That's why we don't let three-year firefighters test for patating chief, because there is a series. It's a journey, you know. You go from firefighter to driver, to company officer, to chief officer. There's a reason behind that because we have to get that experience under our belt in order to be self-confident as the commander. I have to have been in that situation before in some shape form or fashion and know okay, I've been here, I know what this is like before and I can work through it.
Speaker 2:I don't want to ask you something about confidence, just a little bit, because we've used some audio in the past and it's going to come up. I think you're using it at the conference. I think it's the same incident where, where I think it was, you were the incident commander and Alpha was assigned and you were ready to make a strategic shift and then that tactical boss said command, if you just give us a second, I got these companies in place and I think we might be able to get it. And I want to get it all clear and you had that you was the incident commander, had no hesitation of okay, we're going to go with that. And I think that's the piece of of that relationship, not just with companies, but with all of your colleagues and everybody that you work with on okay, this, this is a team effort, we're all in this together, right? So I think that confidence thing that you had in that person is because you had in your mindset of okay, they're competent, I put them into a place to make decisions, they're there to help me, right? And and you had confidence in making that decision. Then, okay, I'm going to give you a little bit then, because you had you know that that person a little bit closer, that could feel it, taste it, touch it as a tactical boss like we talked about, that was maybe in a little better position than you were to say, okay, well, I'll give you, I'll give you a little bit.
Speaker 2:It wasn't necessarily a company saying that, it was somebody else, that that that you had know. You know their skill set. You've probably worked with them before. You know where they've been, what they've done right. So I mean I think that's a huge part of this whole you know confidence thing. I compare it so many times to you know if you've got a quarterback that'll stand in the pocket. They got some confidence in that line is not going to let nobody get to them right. Well, the incident commander is protected by the company officers, everybody on the fire ground, the other people who they put in support positions and your guys's case that that person who drives you around or you drive them around whichever, whichever way that works in your system, but that that you have that you know support piece to help us with that, with that you know confidence level that we can. We can kind of do more and take on more, because we built this team and the system to to manage it, to manage the event.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I would be remiss if I didn't mention that's Battalion Chief Kevin Lewis that you hear in that audio, who is also. He's pretty well known in the world of search. Him and Captain Sean Gray do a lot of teaching all over the country. They've taught at Firehouse, fdic, things like that. So you know, I have extreme confidence in him. He and I have worked together for 25 plus years. He's served as his division supervisor and he served as my division supervisor in the past. We've worked very well together over the years.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean there is that piece there. He's seeing something that I'm not seeing because I'm sitting in the command post. He has a different angle and I have to go with that, you know. But I will say to the contrary, I mean there is a time when you know you have to make that judgment call and say, hey, we've done enough and it's time to pull the plug, so to speak. But yeah, that's, that's huge, that's huge and that's why that's why I think it's so important to that we assign that that division supervisor is a battalion chief rank because you know, I know some jurisdictions may may play that down to the company officer level and I mean you do what you got to do given your resources, but I think having that, having that chief officer in that role with that level of experience and knowledge and expertise, really helps that incident commander drive that incident action plan.
Speaker 3:And what's the third C that we're talking about?
Speaker 1:The third C is is control. And that is there again. You know, I kind of divide that up into self control and control of the situation. Really, control is just the power of influence or being able to direct someone's behavior. You know, self control that's, of course, is the biggest piece of that You've got to. You've got to be able to process the stress, you know, and be able to deal with that, with that sympathetic nervous system response that you get from. Oh boy, I'm in charge and it's on me now. You know the buck stops here. You've got to be able to control that surge and be able to function. I think there's a lot of different methods that you can use with that.
Speaker 1:I personally I like to use cardiovascular conditioning. I know I've read studies where it says that if you're in good cardiovascular health, you're, it's easier for you to deal with that sympathetic response and your body is used to that. You're used to that increased heart rate, that increased breathing, so your body can control that better. I try my very best to do a minimum of 30 minutes of cardiovascular conditioning every morning when I get to work. That's part of my daily routine. The guys at the firehouse know that chief is in the gym from 6am to 6 30 every morning. If you want to find me, that's where I'm at. I'm on the treadmill or the stair master, and so I try to stay in good cardiovascular conditioning for that reason. Not only that, but that to me that also is a good role model for them, or it gives them a good example so that they can do the same.
Speaker 1:The other, the other part of the control aspect is getting control of the situation. You got to be the one that comes in and gets control. I mean you got to be able to, to be able to take the reins and and be able to start from scratch if you need to. I mean if, if those initial actions haven't been done that initial rate report, that walk around you may get there and none of that's been done. You have to start from scratch. You may be the first one to get there as the, as the strategic incident commander, and you have to start from scratch. You may. You may get there and things are going bad and you may have to call an audible. You know, right in the middle of the incident. You've got to be able to take control of that and do it. I think on one of your previous podcast. I remember Nick talking about when he was shift commander, pulling up and seeing, hey, this is not going well and just hey, I'm taking it and we're going defensive, boom, strategic shift right off the get go as soon as he cues up the mic. You know you may have to do that. You got to be able to take control of that In the one of the examples in my class where we talk about the successful rescue, I pulled up on the scene as the strategic incident commander.
Speaker 1:I think I was third do. There was two engines on the scene at the time. They were all hands rescue. I had one. I had one crew that were all in all in on rescue. I had the other crew was was stretching a line for fire control. I knew they were task saturated. I could see the building. I knew what was going on. I knew the action at the incident action plan. I did not take the time to do a command transfer. I took it and I went with it and that's part of getting control of the situations. You have to be able to do that in a moment's notice.
Speaker 3:What happens when we don't? I think the three of us have been in systems or with ICs that don't have these three C's and we know the kind of angst and anxiety that creates on the fire ground. What what else happens if we're not following?
Speaker 1:a little, bad things could happen. If you don't have command and control, then it's, you know, it's just nothing but freelancing. At that point, guys, I mean, you know, firefighters, firefighters are going to do what they got to do to get the job done, and if we don't control them on the fire ground they're going to, they're going to do whatever it takes and we're going to lose command and lose accountability and when that happens, bad things result.
Speaker 2:Does the competent confidence and control. Do you feel like those build on each other, like you? Really, you really can't get to control if you don't have the other two. And I don't know that you can get to being confident if you're not competent. And if you are, if you are confident and you're not competent, that's very dangerous, right? So I mean, what would be? How do you, how do you think those three really connect?
Speaker 1:Well, I think you're exactly right there, josh. I think you know you have to start with the competence piece, and the competence piece is going through the program, getting certified, you know, continuing the the steps and reps. And and let me just say to you know, competence is a two-waste, that's a two dimensional thing. You know you, not only do you, as an incident commander, have to be competent, but you have to know that your people are competent. And the only way you can do that is through drilling. You know, I tell my folks all the time, you know, there's there's, there's training and then there's drilling.
Speaker 1:Training is hey, we're all getting together, we're going to sit down and we're going to go over and we're going to, we're going to practice, we're going to learn a new skill or we're going to practice some previous skills to reinforce. Drilling is we're all going down to the training tower, we're going to, we're going to put some bubblegum smoke in the building. I'm going to give you a scenario and three, two, one go, that's a drill. And I think the only way you truly know, as an incident commander, that your people are competent to do the job is through drilling. I make a point to do a minimum of two drills in my battalion a year where we go down to guys, come in blind. I don't tell them anything about the scenario, and it's three, two, one go and we go from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's awesome, right. The place to find out some places where you might need the train or do better, or to identify, hey, if I have a specific thing this person or this group is going to be better for, that is definitely in the controlled environment, right? I mean, the place to try to figure it out isn't when something has gone bad. We talk about that with air management, like when your bell's ringing and shit goes sideways. It's too late. So I mean, what you're doing with that drill thing is you know, that's awesome because you're figuring out, as the IC, what is my real capability. I mean you're running the full scale exercise before the bell rings.
Speaker 1:Well, you take a, you take a task, a fire ground task like vertical ventilation. You know, not every not every one in your, in your battalion, or your organization for that matter, is going to be competent at vertical ventilation. You, you need a. You know I had a really good mentor in mind, battalion chief John Keneff. He retired last year. You know his adage when it came to vertical ventilation was you got to have three things in order for ventilation to go correctly. You got to have the right building, you got to have the right fire, but, most importantly, you got to have the right crew. You got to have a crew that is trained and invoiced on that procedure and and and knows what they're doing, who has been on roofs before, who has made those cuts and can get the job done.
Speaker 2:That's a great, that's a great adage because it forces you down that path. Well, his whole mindset was decision making right. Like exactly, it starts with what is really going on here and what do we need to do and is this going to benefit or not? I mean, that's, that's awesome. So, to talk about the rescue thing, the confidence in the rescue thing, it blows me away.
Speaker 2:I think I've heard it twice now or I believe, on a couple of different incidents, where the search crew, you know, find somebody, gives a good cannery port and includes a we're going to need a Siano kid on the Alpha side. That didn't happen because that happened because you trained on it. Right, that happened because you trained on it. And that happened probably because, I mean, maybe it came out in a drill, like, hey, we need to know, right, but the need I mean it's a need, right. So you can tell the difference between people who say, oh, yeah, we do all of these things, and then the people who say they do it, but they really do it, because when somebody finds somebody and they got the screen going and it's like what are they saying and where are they going and what are they doing Right? Versus who?
Speaker 2:Engine 741 to command priority traffic. We found a victim. We're coming out to Alpha side. We're going to need to sign on, okay, and the search isn't complete. It's like they've talked about that, they've trained on that before. Those people were confident, confident right and maintain control of themselves, which just puts you in a better position, you know, to keep managing the event and to manage. You know that specific problem, that that the that they identified, that needs to be addressed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, we're very fortunate in our organization. You know we have we have the funding available to be able to purchase those kits. I think the last time I heard from our EMS chief those things were about 600 bucks a piece and we had an incident just a few weeks ago where we used four of them on one incident. We have a specialized unit within our department, our medical operations team, that respond when we balance the alarm on any structure fire, they automatically get dispatched. They they come to the scene, they're transport capable, which we do not transport as an agency, but they are a transport capable unit. But they come with multiple sign of kits. They come with the ability for airway control, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:And you know I preach in my battalion constantly about the formation of medical group when we get that first, that first due ALS unit. If they're not, if they're not first due, if they're not actually helping stretch a line or if they're not actually searching, they're going to be on the offside most likely as medical group. I'm a huge advocate of medical group and I tell my guys you know we can make the sexiest grabs ever on the fire ground and come out in high five, but if we can't take care of them when they hit the front yard, then what we've done is for nothing and we have to be able to provide that, that life support of care, emergency medical care, that it takes and get them to the appropriate facility.
Speaker 3:A number of years ago, a large urban department that did not do EMS at the time would routinely drag their victims to the front yard and leave them there and then go back in fighting fire without rendering aid at all.
Speaker 3:You know what's the whole point if we're going to drag somebody out and do this rescue, if we don't set up the appropriate treatment and take care of them after we get them out of the fire, you know, at that point the building might be gone, but now life is still number one, so let's take care of those victims.
Speaker 3:I I've heard that on your audio and I just thought that was great because there was no question as to where that treatment was going to take place and where the medical aid was going to be needed and who was doing it. It wasn't leaving it up for debate or up for grabs. Because then you end up with this freelancing situation, and I think for some of us that don't make those rescues on a regular basis, if you as the IC aren't defining who is going to take care of the patient, then everyone's going to take care of the patient kind of the opposite of that major urban fire department where then suddenly you don't have anybody fighting the fire. So I think to have that very controlled plan when you bring somebody out is essential to not only taking care of that victim but continuing to make sure that you're fighting the fire or completing your search or whatever else needs to be done on that scene.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And I just real quickly I kind of dive into where that, where that kind of came from From me. We had a fire several years ago where we had some helmet cam footage that made its way through the department and the crew did a great job with the grab. I mean they went in, they went in VES, through the, through a bedroom window, got this lady, took her down a ladder. She, it was a. It was a very successful grab in terms of search. But just like you said, with that urban fire department, when she hit the ground it was like OK, we're done.
Speaker 1:And I thought to myself, why are we doing this? And then I go back to my days as a firefighter or even a young company officer where that's what we did when we went to the tower, we grabbed the dummy, we brought him down the ladder and then we just dropped it and said, okay, we're done. And we either went to rehab or we went back in and finished the search or whatever. And it's that muscle memory over time that has developed that. So in seeing that, I decided then and we've got to make a change at at least my battalion level. And so now when I drill, when they bring a victim out on one of my drills. They start compressions and they start medical care and they don't stop until they're relieved, and so that there again we're trying to retrain that muscle memory.
Speaker 3:We saw the same thing happening when we were first got the flash over chamber and inside the flash over chamber, you pencil, pencil, pencil. Don't put the fire out all the way. Then we'd get to a regular fire. You know, rocking and rolling and people were penciling in hallways and just penciling in the room. It's like, why aren't you flowing water? Well, because the muscle memory, because that's what they did. So now there's a huge disclaimer when we go to those flash over chambers, or rather simulated fires like you got to put it out. You got to, you got to flow the water and put it out, and what we do on the training ground is what we're going to do on the fire ground. Absolutely, the building, it is really good. So what, these three C's? How much of that starts in the firehouse for you.
Speaker 1:I think, from a competency standpoint, that certainly can start in the firehouse, you know, with training and drilling. Well, I mean, of course, it originally begins at the beginning of your career in the academy and it builds from there. Confidence, you know, comes. I think that comes from running calls more than anything, and training with your crew Control is something that you have to develop personally.
Speaker 3:The relationship that you have with your support officer and in Cobb County, are you running with somebody as your aid, or your driver or a support officer, or are they in a separate vehicle? How do you operate that way?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have a chief's aid every battalion chief. We have five battalions within the county and every battalion chief has an aid, a designated aid, and it's actually a requirement for us to keep that aid with us at all times, Like even when we're short staffed. Our command staff would actually prefer us to shut down a unit versus for us to run by ourselves. They put that much emphasis on having that support officer in the vehicle with us.
Speaker 3:That's fantastic, because a lot of times that's the hard sell or you have to apologize almost for having that position. But we know that's a game changer. So, working with that aid, how do you communicate with them? What's the expectations and how do you develop them so they become your for lack of the better word apprentice?
Speaker 1:Well, first off, let me just say you know, I talked to battalion chiefs and other jurisdictions and other departments neighboring departments, you know and they're all jealous, they hate, they, you know they. Oh, I have to do this by myself or I have to drive and worry about writing down what's going to, writing down assignments and keeping track of what's going on and stuff like that. So you know, I just want to reemphasize how blessed we are to have those guys in the car with us. But mainly, you know what happens is. You know they're number one first and foremost. They get us where we need to be. That frees me up, that I don't have to worry about emergency driving. My driver's taking care of that. I can always pull up all.
Speaker 1:We have our GIS system with them in the county. I don't know if you guys are familiar with GIS, but it's like a global information systems. I think is what it's known for, I'm not sure. Anyway, it's a mapping system. So we use that. I usually. I take care. I tell my guys hey, I'm going to pull up and tell you where your hydrants are. I don't want you guys have to worry about that. I want you to. If you're first due, I want you to be worried about getting dressed and telling your crew what you're going to do and doing your size up. You know and I so I always pull up the hydrogen information. I relay that to everybody that's coming into the scene. That frees me up to do that. It frees me up to keep track of what's going on with my command worksheet en route to the call. I may be filled in some phone calls from superior officers. You know who knows what's going on. But and then when we arrive on the scene, if I'm not comfortable with the followup report and the 360 is not what I think it was, or maybe something's changed and I need to get another 360, I can deploy that chiefs aid and I know that he can get that, walk around in and come back and give me the information that I'm looking for.
Speaker 1:So there's that aspect. And then once they come back to the car if they even leave the car they're usually my accountability officer. That's our first level of accountability. We also run accountability at the division level, but for an overall strategic command, if that division supervisor is not deployed, then we run accountability at the command post. So they usually take charge of that Also. All of our chiefs-aids are also certified drone pilots. We have a drone program in the county and so if we have, like I say, a big box and I need to and need to get an all four sides view or take a look at what's going on from an aerial perspective, or something like that, the aid can deploy the drone and fly that, and so we can get eyes on that also.
Speaker 3:Are you using them as an embedded safety officer if you're deployed to a division, if you're a later arriving chief?
Speaker 1:Yes, that's correct. We also do that as well, and they maintain that accountability at the division level.
Speaker 2:So when it comes to like lining up with the whole command president presence, confidence, all of those things you know how does like really knowing what's going on and what people are saying affect that impact that, what it really comes down to? I mean, you said you just said something about the drone, right, I mean, if you get the drone in there, that's another set of eyes, right. If you got a division boss forward, it's like, okay, I feel a little bit different maybe about that. Like they can see you know some things differently. So we've all probably had that feeling like what's really going on here? I'm trying to figure it out. It doesn't look like what I'm hearing or it doesn't. You know, something just doesn't line up. So how does that really Impact the whole the whole command presence thing, like?
Speaker 1:I think it just it boosts off all All three of the seas that we were just talking about. You know it increases. It increases your confidence because you've got a scene, you've got a senior officer or chief officer deployed forwardly as a division supervisor. It increases your. It can increase your confidence by having that person deployed and know that that person can get the job done. It also can increase your confidence by having a drone deployed so that you can keep a constant watch on what's going on on all Four sides of the building. Those things are amazing. They'll actually even you can just hit a button and they'll fly a continuous 360 Around the building for you so that you can get a continuous picture.
Speaker 1:It's unbelievable, the technology that we have now. I've just been told the other day we're gonna be enhancing that program now. We're gonna actually gonna get them with the FLIR Capabilities and and all other kind of stuff. But it also, you know, and and more than anything I would say, though, going back to the division supervisor piece, is that control having that guy, or that, that chief officer there at that on that alpha side or Charlie side, or whatever Controlling that, the flow of personnel as they're assigned in and out of that structure. That's huge, even even bigger when a Mayday happens and, and, and you know, god forbid, you know, the worst day of our careers, having that person standing at the door saying, hey, I'm the gatekeeper, you know, and I've got this situation, I'm handle it, man, what Mean? It just doesn't get any better than that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you guys got a ton of good, really good things going on there, so I do want you to talk a little bit about changing gears slightly, what you guys are doing with your command training center and what's going on with that.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, we just we just completed the. The construction of our command lab is what we, as we call it there. It's that we, we actually remodeled our, our training center. We were sharing it with the, the PD, for years and and they moved out and got their own training center. We, so we were able to renovate the entire building and and with that we took the old, the old tactical room where they used to. It was covered in in mats where they used to fight and tumble what. We turned it into our command lab and we actually took the front cab off of a reserve apparatus and mounted it inside the lab.
Speaker 1:So there you start out. When you're, when you're going through a scenario, if you're that initial company officer, you actually start out in the cab of the vehicle and there's a big screen TV that you look through the, through the windshield, and you give your initial radio report based on what you see on the screen. And then you get out and you walk around the room and as you walk around the room you're getting your, your 360 Different sides of the building and then you give your follow report and then you can move to a to another location and as units come in, they get assigned and they go to these little breakout rooms that they can. They can sit in where everybody's quiet and you can. You know radio traffic's not bleeding over one another and and it's just it's.
Speaker 1:It's a great facility for that. It actually even has the capability to we have a roll-up door in there when we can actually pull the battalion chief's vehicle inside the lab and run and run a scenario From the inside of the battalion chief's vehicle inside the lab itself. It's a Really awesome. I just I've got some good video footage that I shot of it. That I'll be I'll be putting on display at at my class at the conference so everybody can see it.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. I think so many of those things you identified there, like I mean that company officer actually being in the front seat of a fire truck and having the similar tools and being in that position, you know it's the training in context thing right. So I mean maybe initial IC certification you know it may not be so important there when you're into that crawl phase, but you know, when you're in doing continuing education and Continuing to grow the system and looking for that continuous improvement, when you can put people into the near nearly to be in positions like they'd be in going to a fire, you and a battalion car with your aid, seeing a screen, using all the tools that you have, I mean that's, that's awesome. I mean you guys are doing, you know, great, great work with that.
Speaker 3:Steve, is there anything else you want folks to know about the three C's or anything else that we missed while they're talking you today?
Speaker 1:I think it's important to talk about the two-dimensional aspects of all of these. And when I say two-dimensional, I mean not only does the IC himself have to have competence, confidence and control, but the people that you are leading you know the people in your battalion, the people in your organization. They have to have confidence. They have to know the system just as just as well as you do. They have to have confidence in themselves that they can do the job. They also have to have confidence in you as as as their leader, as their incident commander, that you're gonna be able to to get on scene and get it sorted out and and get it done. And they also have to have, they have to know that you're gonna get control. I think that's that's the big point there. But it's a two-way street. You know, not only is it the, the IC or that or that chief officer that has to have those three qualities, but I think the people that you lead have to have to have to possess those as well.
Speaker 2:I won't hit on something on that. How do you feel about the whole? So we always talk about active listening. Right, the strategic IC has to be doing active listening. So what is it? What does it do To your companies? Or what kind of feedback do you get from people? Or what do you? I mean you might not get any feedback from them, If I know you do a great job, but if you don't answer them or you constantly have to say unit with traffic, what do you think that does to their mindset about you?
Speaker 1:Wow, that's a good question. I'll. I know that you, in the audio that you that you'll hear at the conference, you know, from the successful rescue, you know there's one officer in particular. You know he's a great officer, he makes good decisions, but he oftentimes he gets a little hyped up, he talks a little fast on the radio and I think there's even one point in the audio where you'll hear me say command of that unit, slow down, say it again. You know, because you can't understand him.
Speaker 1:You know, I think active listening is its paramount, for for a strategic incident commander it's very difficult for for an initial incident commander to to to, to have that capability because he's actually on the line, he's in tears, he's doing the work, but I think for a strategic incident commander it's absolutely essential.
Speaker 1:I know one, one thing I have and anybody that works in my battalion will tell you this is that chief don't want you coming to the car. You know, because everybody wants to come to the car and that's kind of where the if you've seen my video advertising for the conference, that's kind of where that came from Is. Everybody wants to come to the car and chit chat with the chief and that's mine. That's my number one rule on the scene Do not come to the car and that's another, that's another job that by aid does is when that someone comes to the car and my aid is like hey, come over here, he doesn't want to talk to you, because I'm, I've got my headset on and I'm concentrated and I'm laser focused on the incident and I don't want to be disturbed and they all and they all know that and they give me a hard time about it, but that's OK.
Speaker 2:But if you just let me go in there, I could solve the whole problem.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Exactly you know, chief, we could do this. You know, if you just let me do this, we'll we'll get this taken care of for you. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:So I think so the point I was really, I guess, trying to drive to because we hear it so often all over the place with traffic is engine 17,. The command no answer. The second time there's a little bit more aggression, right, and the engine 17 to command right. And then by the third time it's almost like the company gave up. They're like, ok, what are they really doing, right, and I mean they're losing confidence, right, the companies are losing confidence and it's like and like we talk about all the time.
Speaker 2:If you're the IC and you're missing that traffic, then you just missed the Mayday. Every time that happens, I tell people you just missed the Mayday. And we all know like it comes out one time, oftentimes, right, I mean oftentimes it comes out one time and if you're not focused and do it active listening, you're going to miss it. So that's just a piece of it, right. And then the other side you know what you talked about. You know somebody gets a little, a little amped up, stoked up, talks fast, you know, whatever. That just comes back to the training thing. I think, right, but you just have to have those conversations. They slow down. But you know, some of us just don't have that I mean. It's like yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm one of the few incident commanders in our organization that actually use a headset inside the vehicle. But you know, it's not much of a, it's not as much of a of a noise canceling thing for me, or is it just makes me pay attention Having that, having that headset on my head, and it forces me to listen to the radio, where, if I didn't have it, I think I would probably be more likely to like wander and talk to my aid, or, or, you know, or if my, if my support officer climbs in the back seat, you know, and you know, I might be more like, more apt to talk to him or, or her, or whatever, and and, but having that headset on my head it forces me to focus on my listening. That's just me.
Speaker 2:And that's our job, that's a huge part of our job, and strategic eyes is active listening, for sure, yeah.
Speaker 1:But I totally agree. You know you take that crew. You were talking about engine 17,. You know that if they, if they have to call me three times and they can't get an answer, what are they thinking? They're thinking well, if I have a Mayday, is he going to hear me? Oh yeah, that's terrible. I would never want my my folks to think that.
Speaker 3:Battalion Chief Steve Lester, cobb County. Thank you so much for being on B shifter today. We look forward to seeing you at the conference in Cincinnati October 5th and 6th. That you can still register, so the link to that is in our show notes. And I want to thank you too for not only sharing today and everything that you shared with the B shifter prior, but also all the audio. I mean it's giving us some really good examples of application of Blue Card in a sensibly aggressive fire department, where you guys are getting the job done, doing it very well and just continuing to develop that with all of your people. So thank you so much for sharing all of that with us today and everything you've shared in the past, thank you.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you, josh and John. I'm really, really appreciative for you guys having me on, and you know, I'm just trying to leave it better and I found it, man. That's that's what it's all about, and, if we can, whatever we can learn from audio wise or or video wise, helmet cams, all that kind of stuff. I mean, that's that's how we're learning these days because, like I said, we're just not going to the fires that we used to go to, and so we have to. We have to share with others so that others can learn from our successes and our failures. So, thanks for having me on. I look forward to seeing everybody in Cincinnati.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we'll see you next month. See you, guys. Thank you.