We define what IC "task saturation" is and Blue Card News including a recap of 2023 and more important, what is coming up for 2024!
This episode features Josh Blum and John Vance.
Sign up for the free Decision Making Webinar on December 6, 2023 here: https://streamyard.com/watch/wvmht9qGt4bp
The link to the latest NIOSH Report is here: https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/fire/reports/face201903.html
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, our free weekly newsletter here: https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/fmgs92N/Buckslip
Shop B Shifter here: https://bshifter.myshopify.com
Register for the 2024 Hazard Zone Conference here: http://hazardzonebc.com/
All of our links here: https://linktr.ee/BShifter
Please subscribe and share. Thank you for listening!
This episode was recorded in Minnesota and Ohio on December 3, 2023.
We define what IC "task saturation" is and Blue Card News including a recap of 2023 and more important, what is coming up for 2024!
This episode features Josh Blum and John Vance.
Sign up for the free Decision Making Webinar on December 6, 2023 here: https://streamyard.com/watch/wvmht9qGt4bp
The link to the latest NIOSH Report is here: https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/fire/reports/face201903.html
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, our free weekly newsletter here: https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/fmgs92N/Buckslip
Shop B Shifter here: https://bshifter.myshopify.com
Register for the 2024 Hazard Zone Conference here: http://hazardzonebc.com/
All of our links here: https://linktr.ee/BShifter
Please subscribe and share. Thank you for listening!
This episode was recorded in Minnesota and Ohio on December 3, 2023.
Welcome to the B shifter podcast, john Vance here today along with Josh Bloom, and we are coming to you here at the beginning of December of 2023. We wanted to talk about some of the things that have occurred this year and some things that are coming up for Blue Card next year, and then a little later on in the conversation, we're going to check in on the latest NIOSH report that's out there, identifying some contributing factors to a recent or a fairly recent line of duty death. It's a recent report. Are you doing, josh? I'm great.
Speaker 2:Good to see you, man, nice to see you. I wish I was somewhere where it was a little bit warmer, but I'm always reminded that I have a choice, and I guess I'm not making good choices when it comes to staying here in Cincinnati, that it's cold and gloomy and rainy, but anyway happy to be here.
Speaker 1:We've got sunshine and 29 degrees here in Minnesota, and last night I didn't see it, but you could see the northern lights from here. So that's one great thing about being in the northern United States that if you chose to look at the northern lights, you could. Hey, we want to encourage everyone to like, subscribe and tell a friend whether you're watching this on YouTube. Please subscribe and hit the notification on YouTube. That way, you don't miss any new B-Shifter podcast. Also for Spotify, we had somebody who at least one that we were one of their top listens of 2023 on Spotify. If you happen to be a top listener, direct message us that logo and we have a little prize for you. So this year we're going to take care of you and, remember, we will next year too. So, as you're listening to the B-Shifter podcast on Spotify, if you subscribe, you'll be eligible to win some nice prizes next year as well too.
Speaker 1:We have the Hazard Zone conference coming up. We have already booked that for 2024. Let's talk about that, and we have early bird pricing available right now too. Josh, josh.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we brought it back, brought the conference back in 23 and had a great attendance, great feedback. I think it was great for everybody to get together and network and socialize and we were happy to catch up with everybody, opportunity to give everybody a little bit of an update and then to bring in this year. I think we had 17 or 18 different presenters that presented over the two days and people could see multiple different classes Chief Lee from FDNY, dan from FSRI, shane Ray from the National Fire Sprinkler Association and our goal with that is to keep people connected to like what's going on now and what does it look like into the future. So really not so much some of the past story time though we can learn from that but like what's going on today and what can we do and what can we put in your hands and really into your brain that you can take home and use in your own organization to support what you're already doing. So we're bringing it back in 2024. It's the same week, it's October.
Speaker 2:The conference is actually October 3rd and 4th this year because we had some questions about hey, what would it look like if you did something before, this kind of a pre-workshop, some pre-workshop classes. So the 3rd and 4th is the conference. On Thursday, friday, that Tuesday, wednesday, before the conference, we're doing a May Day workshop, the two-day May Day workshop that we've been running now for you know, many years. I think we've put I don't know, we've put several thousand people through that now all across the country, so that's limited to the first 40 people when you register for the conference. And then we're also going to offer a three-day cert layup Monday, tuesday, wednesday before the conference.
Speaker 2:If an organization was looking to get somebody checked off or you're just starting to end the blue card, and the deal with that is is, if you register for the conference now early bird pricing you get a free online account so you could actually go through the online and then you could come to the conference and actually get certified in October. So a lot of things going on. I think this year we've expanded it quite a bit. We got we're going to have about 30 different presenters and every student would be able to see like 12 to 15 of those presentations you know, plus the general session and keynote stuff that that we're doing there. And then a great opportunity, obviously to network with, you know, 750 like-minded people who are mostly, you know, company officers or inspiring company officers and above to talk about, to talk about this job and what we do and how we can all do it better.
Speaker 1:So if you register now you get the early bird pricing, which is $415 per student, per participant. Plus you get a blue card subscription that's transferable to anybody within your organization. That's a $385 value. So you're really talking about going to a conference If you get on the early bird. Is it my math right there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, 30 bucks, you get the online. You get the online, that's for that's 385, and then for $30 more you can come to the conference. So really, you're registering for the conference for $415 and then we're going to give you a free online account and then, if you wanted to come to the conference, to the Mayday Workshop or the CERT lab, we're doing that for $700 total. So all five days of training for $700, or the Mayday Workshop in the conference for $700. And if you do that, you still get that transferable, you know, online account.
Speaker 2:So I've been influencing people. If you're putting people online in your organization, you know, take advantage of that. That. You know, hey, we're going to buy online subscriptions anyway. You know, for $30 more, I'd pay that out of my pocket. Well, I mean, I've paid so much money out of my own pocket anyway, going to trainings, whatever. That's just what I think people who want to want to do this job and love this job do anyway. But that's neither here nor there. It's a deal to pay, you know, $415, and then I could give that license to somebody because I was going to buy one anyway for them to go through, or, you know, whatever.
Speaker 1:So that's awesome. Well, it was a great, and we're still going to have networking, we're still going to go to the brewery across the street and probably have some expanded opportunities too, because they're doing some additions to the conference center in Sharonville, right outside of Cincinnati, that we were at. So I'm sure we'll be taking advantage of that. If you were there, you know that you didn't go hungry, you didn't go thirsty. There were great breaks that we were able to talk to one another. We had vendors there that really compliment the blue card message, whether it was looking at the safety props. We had the National Fire Sprinkler Association there with their trailer. We'll be doing a lot of stuff like that too.
Speaker 1:So, aside from the normal learning and being able to share knowledge, we also have a lot of opportunities just to network and see what else is going on in the fire service. So go to hazardzonebccom to register and to get the full information on the conference. If you have a boss or someone to share that with you know you can send them that link to show exactly what is planned right now, and so they understand the value of that and we will be adding more to it. But get in on that early bird pricing and we know a lot of people have into the year money right now. You know you end up.
Speaker 1:I know my department. We spend down our budgets pretty good because, like most, we're lean, but we also get some reimbursements from our state on training, which means that we have a few extra training dollars left. So we're trying to register everybody right now for any classes they're going to go to in 2024 using some of our 2023 money, and we have the opportunity to do that too at bshiftercom, not only for the conference, but for some other classes that we have coming up. What do we have in store for 2024? And how do people get registered for that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so 2024 is looking looking busier than it was in 2023. So I mean, right now we already have 27 train the trainer classes scheduled and booked and I have about 17 agencies that are waiting that we're just waiting to get dates on to schedule training trainers for them. And then we have four big box workshops scheduled right now which you can register at bshiftercom. You can go to bshiftercom. Those classes are listed in there that you could See when we're offering the big box workshops and we're going to add one or two more of those classes and then Coming up right around the corner in the first quarter, a class that we've had really good response from the customer base with with how well the class went, how it, how the light bulb came on for people.
Speaker 2:We've always been an organization that wants to train people and give people tools and, most importantly, help people to make decisions during, you know, high stress environments and and give them a Give them a playbook kind of like to help them down that path. So we have the critical thinking and strategic decision-making class that's being taught by Chris Stewart, a retired Phoenix deputy chief, who's now a deputy chief also failing retirement he's at another place and then captain Phillips from Las Vegas fire department. So they've delivered that class a couple times now and Every single time we've gotten, you know, overwhelming response. They're actually coming here to Cincinnati to do a little run-through, with that class coming up in January and it's just a. How do we keep growing it?
Speaker 2:And then we have open seats in the Phoenix Strategic decision-making class, critical thinking, in March. So that's also at b shifter comm and that class is filling up pretty quickly and you can see the information there. That information was in the buck slip and I think, john, we can probably throw it into this one again. Like you know. Here's the information. And then, john, you want, you want to mention it slipped my mind. I don't remember what the date is, but we got a little Teaser coming up that's free webinar on that class.
Speaker 1:Yes, we have a one-hour free webinar coming up this week. So if you're listening to this, when the podcast came out on December 6th that's Wednesday, december 6th at, I believe, noon Eastern time but check the link. I'll put the link in the show notes so you can sign up. Right now we're about half full, so I think we have about 140 people signed up for it. We can get another hundred and ten in the class. Then we'll have to cut it off, but then we'll also repost the class and if you sign up for the class, you'll get a link to the video. But what that's going to provide everyone is an overview of what that strategic decision-making model class is.
Speaker 1:Chris and Eric are going to talk about the overview of the class. It's really an introduction. So if you're either on the fence about going to the class or you just want to learn more about the strategic decision-making model, how it applies to blue card making decisions on the scene, what goes through an incident commander's head, join us on December 6th for that one hour Presentation and we will have time for questions and answers. That's why we want to limit it to 250 people, so everyone has an opportunity. If you have a question for Chris or Eric during the class. They are able to get in and actually get your questions answered. So that that's the reason there is a limit.
Speaker 1:You'll be able to watch the video after the fact, but we'd you know more the merrier. We'd love to have people on live with us so we can interact and Get people's questions on the the strategic decision-making class Answered by the guys who are actually delivering it, and then after that you can decide whether or not that workshop Sounds like it's the right thing for your agency or you, and you can go ahead and sign up for it. So, but it is free. Our one-hour webinar, all of our webinars, are free, so anytime you see that we have a webinar posted. We have done a couple in the past, like one on grants. You know, just sign up for it, you get it for free, and you can go back and watch it afterwards too, because we'll send you a link to View it on demand whenever you want after it's live.
Speaker 2:And we're keeping all those webinars right, john, on our YouTube channel. So I mean, that's another place that they could go visit to see anything that we've done, and I don't want to pass it over, and John doesn't give himself credit sometimes for stuff. But you know we have an intention. Our intention is that we're gonna Start doing more and more free webinars with you know people who are part of the B-Shifter family, the fire departments out there, their Experiences, what they, what they've come across, how can they help. You know other people, so you know, if you can't make it, you know actually to the, to the time when it is, and ask live questions and see it live. You know we're gonna make sure that that we have these, these webinars available, like so many of our other things podcast and everything else Archives so that you can get to it and see it, because we want this to be a Place that you can go to help you get through what you deal with and your own organization. That somebody else is probably maybe already experienced.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it really helps us out if you like, and subscribe, like I said at the beginning, so you get all that content from YouTube. I think we have about Almost 60 videos posted right now and in 2024 that's going to explode. Yeah, I'm leaving my full-time employment as a fire chief. After 22 years of wearing the white shirt, I'm going to be devoting a lot more time to blue card and B-Shifter still sticking in the fire service. I've got some other opportunities that I'll be doing, but this will become my main focus, so I'm looking forward to that. So I just want to get everyone teed up so you don't miss a thing, because our plans in 2024 is to keep cranking out the content and getting you the information that you need to help you make great decisions at your fire department, to help you lead your people and, more and most importantly, part of our mission is is just building great incident commanders out there. So we're gonna continue working on that 2024 and I'm looking forward to actually having more time to put into this, because you know it's.
Speaker 2:It's been a labor of love for me, because I love sharing the information and getting the word and spreading the word, but You'll you'll see even more in 2024, so I'm excited about that and if you all that are out there watching or listening have something that you want to talk to us About or get on the, get on the, get on a webinar or get on a podcast, you know, please send it over to us and we'd be more than happy to plug in, because we can all learn and have to learn from each other.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well, just looking back at 2023. Yeah, it was such a busy year for us. What? What is some of the stats look like if we?
Speaker 1:you know, jelly Roll just said the the windshield is much larger than the rear view mirror, so we don't look back too much, but but I think you know to give you credit and the rest of the, the blue card instructors and everybody who made a lot of stuff happen in 2023, like how, how many new instructors did we put on how many? How many I sees did we put on what? What did 2023 look like for us?
Speaker 2:So we did we did 41 train the trainer classes, which is more than ever. We did 23 workshops, whether it was a Mayday workshop, division ops, the critical thinking class, expanded command ops we did it. We did some, you know, some tactical decision-making work with a few organizations. We delivered seven of the safe safety train the trainers or the size up fire extinguishment tactics classes with. You know that they it's two days, you keep the fire prop. All of that and the numbers for actual instructors, we put 437, or by the end of the year we will put 437 new instructors on. We actually got a trainer starting Monday in Fairfield Ohio, here that People kept signing up, signing up, signing up, and then it was full and then they said to can we do more and more and more? So we actually got, we got 20 students in that class with a waiting list of 12 that wanted in it. So right after the first of the year, you know sometime well, actually, after May, you know, we'll end up adding some people, some more people from from this region. So yeah, 437 instructors and we we will have put about 7500 plus new people on with new online accounts.
Speaker 2:So, starting into the system and as we look forward in 2024, here we are, december 2nd or whatever it is, and right now I have 27 train to trainer classes scheduled for 2024 with 18 or 19 fire departments that I'm just waiting on dates for their class. And a lot of that work is in the northeast from some of those large, some of those large regional grants. So that's something we're seeing. Organizations are coming together. One of them is got 19 fire departments that came together and got a grant and they're going to put a thousand people online and train almost 100 instructors. So you know, the windshield is definitely bigger than the rearview mirror and you know, I always say that I can see much further looking forward with the headlights than I can the reverse lights. Right, I can't see very far behind me, which I try to stay that way. Right, let's stay focused and looking forward and I'm really looking forward to 2024 and beyond and I mean I'm really looking forward to you coming on board, like all the time, so that we can do so many more things. And, you know, keep the focus, like we always have, at the customer, as Bruno would want us to do, right, I mean, what can we do to keep the customer moving forward, giving them all the tools that they need to keep them moving forward. So, yeah, I'm really looking forward to that and right now we got six confirmed workshops scheduled with multiple organizations that are really just waiting on dates.
Speaker 2:A couple more big box workshops. I got a handful of organizations that want that critical thinking and decision making class. We got a few organizations that are looking at the division ops and the Mayday workshop and they want to run that back to back, which we're not like a big fan of that because it becomes a lot right. I don't know that students sitting in class for four days is. I don't know how beneficial you know that necessarily is, because it would be the same people.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, we got, we got a lot going on. So I mean, if you're looking to do something in 2024, just reach out my emails. Always in the show knows Josh at B shiftercom, or you can call me my information's. You know, always out there. But if you're looking to do something, the sooner you'd be willing to get it on to the books, the more flexibility we would we would have, and with with how much work we're just waiting on agencies to give us dates, for the availability is going to get more and more, you know, limited the more time passes, so, joe one other.
Speaker 1:We talk about the buck slip, so so casually. But then I get questions every week about what is the buck slip? So the buck slip is our weekly newsletter. We put it out every week since January 1, whether it's a week, you know, we don't take a vacation, so if it's a vacation day, it's a Tuesday that that buck slip comes out and it's the latest information for leaders and incident commanders. So all of the articles that we used to have in the B shifter magazine that we used to put out three times a year are now on the buck slip. So you can get those articles in real time Instead of waiting for a trimester to go by until you can actually read it.
Speaker 1:We put it out every week so you can get that fresh information. And then any announcements that we have about blue Carter B shifter, we put in there as well. So if we're doing something new, an announcement is put out about a workshop, it's going to be in there. So ask your people if they see it. You know there are. There are people who don't open it, don't read it, don't know about it.
Speaker 1:But I'll give you an example. We put all eight of our SOG's out this year and those were all directly tied into the buck slip and the only way right now that you can get those and we're going to expand this in 2024. But right now the way you get those is actually by subscribing. So the B shifter buck slip is in the show notes if you have not subscribed yet. And then you know, pass it on to people within your agency.
Speaker 1:It is free and it's intended for anybody to read. So even if you're not a blue card user somebody is not a blue card, I see within your organization still pass it on to them because it's a lot of great information and it really runs the gamut from the chief level on down to a lot of things that happen with that. I see number one when they get on the scene and some of their responsibilities when it comes to command. So we're talking to people who are riding the right front seat and what it is that they need to do, and they write articles about it, and then from the chief's perspective, and then a lot of leadership content in there as well. So B shifter buck slip, please subscribe to that. Okay, anything else? Josh, on on what we've been doing here lately before we switch gears.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the only other thing I'm gonna throw out there is just everybody stay tuned. And it's been in the buck slip a bunch, but everybody stay tuned and just watch for information starting to roll out from from Nick and Terry's Silverback leadership, because we've talked about it a little bit but that program, just like the magazine or delivery model, we're changing gears with that a little bit and we're going to roll that out in sections kind of, instead of you know a whole big package and then, when it's all finished, in package it'll be you know all together, but as they have chapters, if you will finished, they're going to roll that out and actually, you know, offer some workshops and classes on that. So just stay tuned and you can find that information at bshiftercom and the buck slip when we actually get that posted. So I'm sure Terry and Nickel will get them on this webinar and get them to talk a little bit more about. You know what that looks like and that's one of the things we're probably going to do in the webinars.
Speaker 2:Like you know, 45 minute. You know educational pieces on. You know the whole Silverback leadership. What does that really mean? Connecting the that anatomy and physiology? I know that's a big part of of of the Silverback leadership, that that's just one of the books that Marino pushed out right. That that, what does that really mean and what does it look like? So just stay tuned for that.
Speaker 1:All right, switching gears a little bit. The latest NIOSH report is out and we'll link to that as well. So if you, if you need to find that new NIOSH report, you can look at it. The information that we tend to get is pretty consistent out of there and we always say, especially during Mayday Day or Mayday Workshop, we haven't really found new ways to kill ourselves in the fire service. It seems to be the same thing. You know, this week, you and I and some of the other lead instructors were bouncing back and forth A major metropolitan fire department actually had a floor collapse in which some firefighters how did the PIO state that Gently rode the floor down.
Speaker 1:I mean, it wasn't. They never used the word collapse, but it was like they were gently lowered to the next floor down or whatever it's like. Well, that sounds like a collapse to me, but these aren't new, right? I mean, whether it's a collapse or any of the shortcomings that we see on the fire ground with incident commanders that get identified, and in this latest report it talked about it. It was. It was kind of a new thing that I I I think I know what it is, but I wanted to ask you about it and it was talking about the incident commander having task saturation. What is the definition of the incident commander having task saturation in your book, josh?
Speaker 2:There's a lot of things going on in the fire ground and the incident commander is responsible for and owns all of the things that are really happening right. So that 30,000 foot foot view so we talk about when we talk about command, whether it's fire commander, any commander or coaching a team and I've talked about this so many times on the podcast already you can't manage. You can only manage what you can manage and you can only do what you can do, and the more, the more is going on, the less that you can really do yourself right. So it's what your education, experience, comfort level. It kind of lines up with Steve Lester's three C's, in my opinion, in some ways right as far as what that one person can do. But how can they help themselves? So the incident commander has more going on than they can really do and we've heard all the numbers. I can manage three to five companies, as long as they got a company officer and they're managing their, you know, one or two people. And with that I'm going to just put it back to task saturation, whether it's the incident commander or a company officer.
Speaker 2:And I'm going to talk about just briefly an incident that happened in Texas that we had somebody on here on the podcast talking about that. You know, the company officer and their firefighter and another person are inside of a building, gets caught in a little bit of a cotton. I don't want to say collapse, but the cotton basically had fallen over, not on top of them, but it had fallen on top of their hose line. They couldn't figure out how to get back out. They start running low on air though the fire wasn't crazy, it was totally sprinkler controlled. There was. There was so much going on and when it became an issue of the reality of we might not get out of here and I might die in a cotton warehouse, you lose the ability to think and do as much as you could do as if it was a controlled environment, right? So in that case, one company officer, two firemen inside the building, and when the company officer gets outside the building with the firefighter, he was right next to you, which is which is who he was the most concerned about, because that was who was right in front of him. It took a decent amount of time before the company officer realized, holy shit, where's my third firefighter? And I think that's a little bit of that task saturation piece, right, that there was. There was a lot going on and then it got serious, if you will, and they couldn't process you know all that information.
Speaker 2:So I think the same thing with an incident commander and with an incident commander we have to be willing to help ourselves with that. And the way we help ourselves with task saturation as an incident commander is one using job aids and tools to help us remember and organize right. So, first of all, if you have a system where everybody's on the same page, that helps with task saturation because you know people get an assignment and they do what they're supposed to do. That's a little piece of that. But you know, a strategic IC using a tactical worksheet helps them with some task saturation because they're remembering things but they're also documenting things so that we can reference that information. So that's a big deal. And then when we're talking about span of control, when I get past you know those three companies maybe working in a geographic area, I can help myself by pushing a division boss forward to manage that geographic area right. So helping build out the organization.
Speaker 2:The other thing the incident commander can do is put somebody in the vehicle with them to support them. So I'm just going to. I'll make it super simple. I'm watching that Washington Oregon game last night, right, and you look down the sideline and there's 35 or 40 people that got on headsets and clipboards and iPads and Microsoft, whatever they got right and every one of those people were there supporting who? The head coach, the head guy right, plus the people that were up in the box and they were very important to them, right, they were playing to win and like, what is our next strategy? What are we going to do? Oh, they changed. They changed how they're playing, they changed how they're lined up, they changed whatever. They're going to do something different.
Speaker 2:Well, we help ourselves the same way on the fire ground. So we have company officers that manage the task level. Those people maintain accountability for their folks and they do what they're assigned, based off task location and objective, and then they communicate if they can't do it. So the direct connection to that next piece is they're connected right to the strategic IC. So the strategic IC manages those people via communications to them, giving them an assignment, and then they track that on the strategic IC worksheet and then, when they get to the point of I have three, two, three or I'm expanding out a geographic area that I want some more support into manage. Then I push that division boss forward and then the division boss is responsible for managing those. You know three to five companies. How many ever end up in that geographic area? Boots on the ground right, using all of their senses, more face to face communications, and that lets the strategic IC manage the number of people that they can really manage, because maybe they have, you know, still three to five people that are working directly for them. But the division boss has now taken responsibility for some of those, some of those other folks. So we can all only do what we can do and really none of us are the same. So it's based on, you know, knowledge, education, experience, that that all plays into that task.
Speaker 2:Saturation, I mean I've been exposed to. We all have right incident commanders that you know they do pretty good, for you know managing. You know three, five, six. You know companies, but I always say until what something happens, right until it gets real, if you will, will like somebody says mayday, mayday, mayday, or priority traffic comes out, or you know things aren't going as you thought they were, and then it's like, well, this ain't, this ain't, that ain't going to go for shit. And then I've also been exposed to the people who you know. The one person struggles to manage themself and I'm not being, you know, nasty about it, but it's true, right. I mean, if you can't manage yourself and be organized and work in a way that is efficient and effective, then you surely can't manage. You know a bigger group of people.
Speaker 2:So when we talk about task saturation, I think that I mean shit. We could probably do a class for a week on task saturation. Right, I mean the critical thinking piece and what that might tie into with what we do in the critical thinking class that Stuart and Phillips are teaching. Because I pull up and I got 10 critical fire ground factors. What are the top three that I'm going to address, but I still need to address the seven others. But I'm just going to address these top three first. And everything's fine as long as it's going the way we want it to.
Speaker 2:But when it changes, conditions change or whatever, and it gets down to more critical thinking, not accidental success, we all go to fires. One hand line puts it out high five, great job, let's go back to quarters and it's like well, what could we have learned from that? It gets different when we have an incident and we're not expecting what we encounter. And I'll give you an example. That just happened here in this county recently, a long time company officer is going through some critical thinking, task level decision making on the on the drill ground, and one of the things was they pull up, they're just doing a size up. There's multiple companies there, they're signing a few companies, they're doing a follow up report. During their follow up report, a parent grasps onto them and is like my kid is in that window, just to like sidetrack them on.
Speaker 2:Like what are we really going to do with this? So, if you haven't, haven't or hadn't thought about that before it happened, this guy got, he got locked up, like he's like I'm not sure what to do here, and he didn't say that, but he was just mentally and physically locked up. The value of it is is they had now experienced that, though it was in a training ground, it gives them something to think about. Right, like what am I going to do if that happens? Well, whether you're talking about the strategic ICB and task saturated or that first due company officer who is also the IC being task saturated, it's the same exact thing. Right, like what can they really do? And just to kind of close that up, is it really comes down to knowledge, education, training and experience. Like how does all of that line up to let you do, or help you do, what you need to do?
Speaker 1:Everyone has a role on the fire ground and I don't. I try not to get into these Twitter debates, but you know this week there was one out there and I just take it in because it drives me on our mission, on what we need to do as far as educating people on the responsibilities of incident commanders and the people who support those incident commanders. But again, it was this discussion debate on what hand tools should a chief be carrying with them? And I was like, as a chief now I understand some people are in situations where you're pulling up with three people. That's different than a standard response. I'm talking about standard response situation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did a podcast on that little piece before you, just to not cut you off, john, but we did a podcast right. Deerfield Township, hamilton Township, ohio, they pull up limited you know limited staffing in that geographic area and the incident commander assigns a fire chief and an assistant chief, as he should because it's in their system, and those guys wear their gear and they wear their air pack and they train and do task level work. Still, because of how they have to operate, though there was a strategic IC sitting in a car, he assigns a chief and an assistant chief to go do a search and they pull somebody out. That's way different than what we're talking about or what anybody else is talking about. Right, I mean, they were.
Speaker 2:Their rank had nothing to do with anything with their assignment. Their rank was you guys are also firemen and I'm going to use you in that capacity right now, because the critical factor is I have somebody known for sure to be trapped and we're going to get them out while another company was stretching a hand line and they did right. So that's just a piece of that. So I always want to clarify that, because just because it's your rank doesn't mean don't mean shit, you should still be able to do that job.
Speaker 1:It's what your actual assignment and position is, so Correct, and what this thing was, though, was more like hey, we need the chief in there with us because they need. They need to be feeling what we're feeling and they need to be doing what we're doing. Everyone has a role on the fire ground and this blurry line between I'm going to get involved in tasks as a chief we see videos of it all the time, we hear about it all the time, and we also read about it in NIOSH reports at line of duty deaths, and it's been well documented in some very large loss of life fires on commercial occupancies that the chiefs end up becoming not strategic and involved in task level work. So that's the two different things. If you're the IC and your IC number two, you've got multiple companies working. You've done that command transfer, that there's a. There's a big difference between that and you're a. You're a later arriving chief and a critical factor needs to be addressed, and you're going to get assigned to take care of that critical factor. So those are two different things, but you know a lot of this, I think, is window dressing, that people want to feel a certain way about their chiefs. You know this is a working chief versus an office chief and all this other stuff that happens politically within the fire service. But I think it's really good to differentiate the two and talk about what that job description looks like.
Speaker 1:And, as I see, number two, even you need to be able to change. So you know, recently we had a rescue. The BC was the first one there. They thought the lady was right behind the door, so they forced the door and she was gone and he realized at that moment that he needed to appeal himself back and say, okay, I need to go get in the car now because people are arriving, I'm going to have them do the rescue. They need somebody to coordinate it all and thankfully that I see who was in, who was a captain acting up into a battalion chief's role, was educated enough and was smart enough to know. I now need to supervise this because I'm getting so many people on the scene that can actually do that work. I just need to coordinate it. So it's different at every fire, but it's standard condition, standard action, standard outcomes. That kind of brings it all together for us as our agencies, depending on what our staffing level is and what needs to happen at the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean a strategic. I see their. Their tools are I mean my vehicle at 70 degrees, temperature controlled, I got a very strong radio. I got a worksheet that I can document on and I can see clearly out this. You know, window what's going on and use my MDC and other things at that 30,000 foot level to assign people right. And then you know division bosses, just as we outlined in our program, right, when you get the organization, we spend a ton of time talking about what does that really look like? How are they dressed? Why are they dressed that way? And you know, a division boss dresses and looks just like a firefighter, right? And you know.
Speaker 2:Some of their key tools, though, is their tactical accountability board, so that they can keep accountability for those people there, all their appropriate PPE, a thermal imaging camera you know, I think, a huge tool, the more, the more we can use all of those tools to help us evaluate what the critical factors are, you know the better. But you know a division boss standing in the front yard with a six foot hook and a halogen ain't the answer, right? And if I'm going to send John, if you and I were working together and I needed somebody to go in there to supervise companies, and I had these other roles filled then. Yeah, I mean, I don't care what rank you are, chief, I need you to go in there with engine seven and engine nine and you're assigned to engine nine now because they don't have a boss with them and you're working with them. Well, that's totally different than what people are talking about.
Speaker 2:Like, well, what tools do they take with them? Right, I mean, if I'm standing on the roof of a house while they're doing vertical ventilation, but I'm the strategic, I see you're in the wrong spot. I did not see either one of those football coaches step foot on that field while the play was going on last night. What they were doing was 30,000 foot, listening to what was going on on the headset from the people in the box above and trying to figure out what did this play just look like? Did it work, did it not work? And what are we going to do next?
Speaker 1:Because if you become part of well, we could talk about this Dianne's report all day and we're getting ready to run out of time, but I will link to it because there is a lot of good information in there. As always, it talks a lot about the size up, the risk assessment and IAP, or lack of incomplete duties of command safety, and also not having an aid for the incident commander, or in our world we'd call that a support officer. So read it, learn from it. That's why they're out there. Prevent it from happening to your organization by learning from what's happened in the past. Well, as we wrap up, do you have anything else to add today?
Speaker 2:The only thing I want to throw out there is you know, nfpa 1561 gets thrown out there. You know a lot and we'll see that in these reports. And you said command safety. So you know two things on that. Just to just to put it out there for people. Because one, you know people say command safety and they're like, well, what does that really mean? And command safety really is, if you take the command book, the chief, bruno Senebro, and then you take this book, oh it says command safety on it. That's what they're talking about Bernice, senebro and Senebro command safety. That's the book that came out 2000 after Brett Tarver died in 2003. That was really an update to the second edition of fire command. So you know that's what they're talking about with that.
Speaker 2:And then NFPA 1561, you know that that is. It outlines so many things and they reference back to, you know, build an organization and proper communications and different levels on the fire ground and strategic IC and all of those pieces. So that sounds so familiar to all of us that do blue card. Because what blue card is is the training program on fire command and command safety, the books or the reference books, right, and we know that.
Speaker 2:When we look at NFPA 1561, we tie it all back together that a very large portion of everything that's written in there eight functions of command, evaluation of critical fire ground factors using the strategic decision making model that sounds very familiar to me, that that came right from fire command. And then blue card teaches us how do we really apply that, what does it really mean and how does it benefit us in the field. So I just wanted to put that out there because we do get some questions on what's NFPA 1561, but what's the training? Well, I mean, a lot of the training is what we do in blue card, and blue card is the training program on fire command and command safety, those two books. So yeah, leave you with that.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you. I'm glad you define that, because we do get that question a lot of times, asking what is command safety? So that's very good. All right, Josh, we're wrapping it up. So I know we'll have a couple more podcasts in December. So stay tuned, subscribe, like, tell a friend, pass it on and we'll have all the information. We'll have a ton of show notes today, so a lot of information in the show notes for all the stuff that we've talked about. All right, have a good one, Josh. Thank you, you too. Thanks, John.