Discover a new dimension to firefighting tactics as Josh Blum and Chris Stewart join us for a robust conversation on the Blue Card Decision Making workshop's game-changing impact on hazard zone management. We zero in on how this program is revolutionizing strategy and decision-making from the chief officer to the firefighters in the hazard zone. This episode promises to leave you with an empowered understanding of adaptable, nuanced responses, vital for tackling the unpredictable nature of fire incidents.
This episode features Josh Blum, Chris Stewart 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, 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 at the Alan V. Brunacini Command Training Center in Phoenix, Arizona on February 14, 2024.
Discover a new dimension to firefighting tactics as Josh Blum and Chris Stewart join us for a robust conversation on the Blue Card Decision Making workshop's game-changing impact on hazard zone management. We zero in on how this program is revolutionizing strategy and decision-making from the chief officer to the firefighters in the hazard zone. This episode promises to leave you with an empowered understanding of adaptable, nuanced responses, vital for tackling the unpredictable nature of fire incidents.
This episode features Josh Blum, Chris Stewart 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, 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 at the Alan V. Brunacini Command Training Center in Phoenix, Arizona on February 14, 2024.
Welcome to the B Shifter podcast. You've got John Vance also here today, chris Stewart and Josh Bloom. How's it going, guys?
Speaker 3:Fantastic. Happy to be in Phoenix.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, josh just had trouble getting to Phoenix. Lately the airline industry hasn't been cooperating with him very well, they haven't had it before. Yeah Well, I'm glad you made it today because you had a rocky start this morning to begin with. So he called about 6 am. He wasn't quite sure if he was going to make it here or not.
Speaker 3:So whole new level of risk management. Can't fly the plane because the lavatories broke. Oh was that the problem.
Speaker 2:Yes, oh, wow. Well, I'm glad you're here. We have a great topic today because Chris has been out on the road teaching a class. Let's talk a little bit about that class before we dive into the topic, and the two kind of have everything to do with each other. So tell us about this class and who's it, for what topics you're covering and it's one of the other. It's a new blue card workshop.
Speaker 1:Well, so it's really for everybody, if you will. Right, it's for strategic level bosses. Well, I'll even say higher, like, if we want to talk about policy level bosses trying to figure out how they're going to set policy, train to policy, that type of stuff. This can support them in a big way. But then, looking at the strategic level ICs within an organization, the tactical level bosses in an organization and the company officer and crew level folks who are either simply just working at that level or every once while they bump up to the next level above them, is kind of working on a standardized critical thinking process, which is the blue card strategic decision making model that's been around for 100 years. Right Is just taking it, applying it for all those levels and then helping an organization or helping the people in the class kind of go through and really understand what it is and then exercise it in a way probably that they may not have ever exercised it before and kind of demonstrate to them like really low tech things that you can do to help from the newest firefighter to the most senior executive level of an organization, utilizing the same thinking process and solving problems in the hazard zone. So that's really kind of what, what it's pointed out.
Speaker 1:I think you know we had Wilmington, North Carolina, ask us about, ask us for some assistance with, with delivering and kind of connecting the dots and coloring in between the gaps, and so we were able to go do that. I think. I think they saw the value there. We certainly saw the value after doing that, and so now we're we're we're offering it as a generic workshop here for anybody to come and take, but then the opportunity to go to specific departments, work with them beforehand and build you know, what is it that they truly want to work on in their organization. And then we can show up and myself and Eric Phillips are teaching it together. We'll show up and kind of work from that chief company officer level and helping them kind of recognize how to do some of this stuff.
Speaker 2:Well, the reviews so far have been really good. I mean, everyone has gone to it is just raved about the class and they are quickly filling up whenever they're announced.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been. It's pretty nice, pretty humbling. All right, but they're a lot of fun to do.
Speaker 2:Great. Well, I can't wait to to see one of them someday soon, so that's one of those I want to have on my list to attend. Well, today we want to talk about critical fire ground factors, because there's some factors that apply to all incidents in the hazard zone and there's some factors that are specialized. So where do you want to start today on our critical fire ground factor talk?
Speaker 3:Well, I think that we've. We talk about breaking down the critical factors and the end of some specific categories and you know, the critical thinking class has really pushed and launched the for every one category there's not 1000, but thousands of factors that that fall under that Right and no incidents the same. And so I think when we really start looking at the critical factors, it's like what is really going on? And in order to know that, we have to be able to identify, you know, what we're really seeing Really, I think, look at, look at all of the factors together somewhat at the same time, but also be able to identify, like what are the key things going on here and what are we going to do about it. So I think that's kind of what we talk about today and where we, where we get to. It keeps running through my mind that like that part of a of a blue card class is like a 24 hour class just talking about critical factors, because a house isn't an apartment building, isn't a mid-rise, isn't an airplane on the highway crash, isn't it, isn't anything else except for what it is the 68 year old lady having a heart attack. Is the 68 year old lady having a heart attack. Isn't the 30 year old that's having a heart attack that has some other issue that's causing that?
Speaker 3:And you know, in the EMS world, I think we we do better with that and we analyze it and we use, you know, the tools that we have available to figure out exactly what's going on and what we're going to do and what we're not going to do. And I think far too often in the fire ground we take and try to make one size fits all and we try to run the super secret play on every single thing and it doesn't work very well and it's a, I think, that comes down to we end up having some accidental success sometimes, because I think Eric Phillips says it, a lot of people have said it you know, one well-placed handline solves a lot of problems. Well, you're going to be pretty successful. The only thing you're looking at is did the fire go out? So I mean, I think the critical factor thing is is more than we're going to bite off and attack, I think in this one podcast, but we're going to start it?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So it's kind of interesting the critical factors, at least in my experience, have, when they don't go, explained or really like there's not a defined process behind the size up part of it and then determining your critical factors they can seem really, really overwhelming, like I'm starting to think of all these serious things happening at this incident. If they're all critical and I got to deal with them all and that's really not what they were designed to do they were actually designed to pick out, all right, what are the most critical things here that we actually have to deal with on the front end, like in a real measurable way? And then what's not critical and like getting rid of the silliness that isn't doesn't matter right now, and so, yeah, we used to use the term regularly is when everything's critical, nothing is critical. So we need to have a standard process in evaluating and sizing things up in order to be able to truly pick out what matters right now. What truly are the critical elements of this? The eight, the, the, the our standard critical factors are eight critical factors are really important categories and, like Josh said, there's a ton that goes into that. So it's not just being able to, you know, academically, like pick. Well, these are them, just because I think they are. That's my experience, or whatever. No, no, we're going to measure it and we're going to connect it to the tactical priorities, because I'm going to have to do work based upon these critical factors. So, what really matters right now?
Speaker 1:And you know it's super easy to say, well, just every time we show up at a fire, life safety is a critical factor.
Speaker 1:Well, that's not always true, right, and so do we have a standard process to measure whether life safety truly is a critical factor? And if so, our risk management, our strategy and our action better match that right? And then, when it's not a critical factor through a standard process, then then our plan should, should match that right and we shouldn't be doing the things that we normally do because life safeties, we believe life safety is an issue, when in fact, we've, either through us or through our actions, have clarified that it's not so that that process. So if, like any academic in in in risk management, we'll tell you, if we, if you can't truly measure and define the problem you're like, your solutions are likely to suck, and we do have accidental success in that. But one of our focuses is let's let's reduce that accidental success and let's talk about all right. How the heck do we measure this stuff and how do we truly define what's critical going on right now, at the incident, and then act on it Like in a real way?
Speaker 3:So, before we get too far past it, you know it comes up in every, every training trainer that we do, and anytime we're helping to build a cert lab, you know people buzz through that slide standard conditions, standard action, standard outcome. And you know, I always ask and most of our staff, I think, ask the same question Okay, well, that's really easy to look at those three what? But what does that really mean? And let's just start with the first one and identify what does that really mean when it says standard conditions? And really what we're talking about are the critical factors.
Speaker 3:Right, like so we're the fire department, we got called to a fire and it's like, well, that's, that's going to be one of them, probably all the time. And then a fire again, like the fires in a 1000 square foot house is in an apartment building and you know, mom's in the front yard, my kids in second floor. Okay, well, that's just another piece of it. Right, the fires in the basement, that's just another piece of it. The fires extended outside the building and run into the roof, that's another piece of it. So that that slide that we use is a big talking point to talk about the critical factors. Because, again, chris, I think that that's what you just really described is, we have to know what the problem is, which is, what are these standard conditions that we can define based off the critical factors, and then we take some sort of a standard action to work through and solve it. But if we just have a list of standard actions but don't define what the problem is, you know it's not going to work.
Speaker 1:And that's kind of the issue I think that we talk about with. You know, sop based assignments aren't based on the conditions, they're not based on what's happening, they're not based on the building type and what's critical right now. It's based on us showing up and it's what we feel like we need to do, or what we, what we, what we normally do. So with this, we're actually measuring the problem, evaluating it in a normal or in a standard way really, and then and then saying, ok, we're going to, we're going to go to work based on this stuff, right, and we're going to deal with this right, here and right now. So the big challenge with that is how do we measure it consistently? Like, how do we? Because, like you know, my experience and I would talk about in classes I've taught a lot of college classes, you know, where we have up to 100 students at a time in the in the Phoenix system. They're, you know, they want to, they want to take the captain's test, right, so they get into the college system and they take tax and strategy and all the other things that they feel like is going to help them in that process. So we would ask that question is like OK, is, everybody in here know how to do size up and there's 100 heads going yeah, yeah, I know how to do it. Ok, explain it to me. And then just shut up and then there's literally 100 different explanations of what size up is, where they start, and all that.
Speaker 1:So it's been really important, or it was important for us then and I think we're seeing it now is to define what are the standard ways we start size up so that we actually get to where we're all coming to a similar conclusion as to what is actually critical here. So defining a standard process and where we start with size up and then evaluating the critical factors based on that stuff. And it's all tied to the work. So you hear the silverback guys talking about it's all tied to the work. Well, this incident command system wasn't designed for something for chiefs to do because they just needed to occupy themselves. It was actually designed to make the work safer and better and so that we're helping the community in a more appropriate, organized way and we're not dying on the fire ground. So we need to develop the system inside there of how we think, so that we're maximizing that system and making good decisions and when we show up to a fire, we're not hiding under the bed or we're not afraid to act because we don't know or don't understand.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I think when you look at the critical factors just for everyone who may not be a blue card user, if you're kind of new to this it's the first stop in our strategic decision-making model. When we're on the scene and we're making a model and Chris said it's not based on SOPs or order arrival, it's based on having thinking incident commanders on the scene, both IC number one, ic number two, everyone that they're working with, everyone in the command team being at the same fire and being able to identify those critical fire ground factors as part of that size-up. So I'll put up a graphic for our video viewers so you can see that strategic decision-making model. But the importance of the critical fire ground factors is it is the first stop as you start to make those decisions on the fire ground.
Speaker 1:So and then what if the youngest firefighter or the least experienced or just the firefighters in general, were using that process to size up where their line is going to go, where they want to push to once they make it through their threshold of the front door? And because maybe the captain's not, or the supervisor, the boss, is not always there to tell them exactly what to do, because maybe they're getting the 360, they're looking at other things, and so that level of the organization is using that process, then the company officers using that process in the same manner, and then when the battalion chief shows up to be IC number two, he's utilizing the same exact process. The division boss is utilizing the same exact process. We've kind of connected and infiltrated that thing throughout all levels of the organization. So it's not a mystery to anybody what's actually going on on the fire ground and what are the things that we need to be looking at and paying attention to.
Speaker 2:I think I've heard you guys say it before. I know I heard you say it several years ago Chief used to say it when he was doing command training was we were all at the same fire, because sometimes you hear radio traffic and it's like is everyone here on the same incident. But I think having those fire ground factors, the critical factors, and having them defined and having an agreement on how they look ahead of time and that becomes the language that you speak within your organization, not only when you're training and you're pre-planning and you're talking about the what-ifs or you're simulating, but also when you come back and do the after-action reviews. So how do we start to dig in on what those factors are?
Speaker 3:So I mean there's eight of them, right. So there's eight broad or focused words. I think that are the critical factors. And then, like I said, there's thousands, right.
Speaker 3:So if we talk about fixed building, occupancy and arrangement, I mean we could sit here till tomorrow and talk about building, right? I mean coming in here today from the airport, I'm driving past some other stuff they're building here and it's like what in the world are they doing to us? And then occupancy type it's like yesterday it was a jewelry store and today it's a pawn shop and houses are being converted to businesses and they're building these big box facilities all over the country and then a company moves out. And we have multiple of them all across our region in Hamlin County, ohio, where a 600 to 1 million square foot building now has 30 occupancies in it and one of the occupancies in there has 100 class A motor homes in it and every one of them are over a million dollars and it was not designed in any way, shape or form to have that right. So I mean that's the occupancy piece of it.
Speaker 3:So. And then arrangement I mean we say that we kind of know how things are laid out, but when we talk about arrangement. We talk about primary arrangement, like how's the building laid out, maybe, and then secondary arrangement is like where does this building sit on this plot of land and how do I get to it and how is it accessible and is there another way into it? And we talk about the train wreck, apartment buildings right, don't block yourself or anybody else in, because the people in 1403 called it in, but the fire is in 2403 across the way. So let's get there, figure it out what's really going on. So that's the first three, but I think everybody listened to this. I mean, if you just took a building, started going through in your mind everything with the building, whether it's construction or how old it is or all of those things. Right, it's like it's a lot of things to consider. So I'll let Chris take the rest.
Speaker 1:So if you look at it from like, if you're a fire department, you're an organization, you're training folks or you're the ops boss or whatever, and you're trying to figure out and we're saying, yeah, there's eight critical factors, right, that's the eight big categories, right, and there's a ton of stuff that can potentially be inside of all those. Well, gosh, how do we manage all that, right? Well, what if our training and our focus was is, if we want us as an organization at all levels to be better at understanding when and why the building is a critical factor, then we probably should be doing some training on understanding construction and the general ideas of how these buildings would go together and what they do and how they divide them and maybe, more importantly, how they fall apart, right, when stuff's under fire, and then spending that time in life safety, right. If we're trying to actually figure out if life safety is a problem on the front of an incident, then we should know and understand all the critical data and research information that is out there. From UL there's the research side, like the scientific research side, the empirical type data that we get from UL and NIST and the stuff that we'll be getting from National Fire Sprinklers, ocean and those types of stuff. And then there's the experiential data that's actually out there, the project Mayday being the biggest and foremost one. And then we look at the firefighter rescue survey and other things. There's important information there and it's how we utilize it and, yes, it's only as good as the information that gets put into it and how it gets managed.
Speaker 1:But I do feel like they have all of those. They have the intent to try and get the right information out into the community. So, what do we actually know about that stuff? What are we training on? What are we identifying as usable information for crews? And then, lastly, if we want to pick the fire, fire and smoke because I like to include them together, right, one usually doesn't happen without the other is what do we know about fire behavior? What do we know about it? And then let's connect all this stuff together the building, the fire, the life, safety, the occupancy, the arrangement and say, ok, all these things added together make a real serious problem.
Speaker 1:But really the most critical things I need to deal with on the front end here is that fire, where it is, my ability to get there, and then can I simultaneously or immediately following that, can I start dealing with this life safety issue that I think I've got here?
Speaker 1:And because that number one helps us be focused with the action on the fire ground in a way better way. And then that helps us not get screwed up, because when you look at line of duty, death, a serious incident reporting, when there's fire in a structure and we're making our way in there, whether we say we're searching or whether we say we're for a fire attack, likely when the bad thing happened there was very little to no water actually going on the fire. And then when we go to try and solve that problem, there's the same is happening there's very little to no water actually going on the fire. So the critical factors tie that together and if we like, if we've got a reasonably clear vision of the critical factors, then the work we should have a reasonably clear vision of what the work should look like in order to do it.
Speaker 3:So last week or two weeks ago, chris, we're doing some company officer stuff, you and Eric and you pulled a picture up and you know, the people with the group automatically throws out that's a balloon frame building and it's like, oh well, that's a different factor, based on where the fire location is. And then somebody says, well, fire looks like it's on the first floor, but did it start in the basement, right? So if you're in basement land, that's a whole nother piece, because we know operating above a basement fire is not the place to be. So it's that. Again back to the evaluation of critical fire ground factors. You just can't go and run through the front door without seeing the big picture of what is really going on. And that's the what is the critical factors.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it becomes counterintuitive for us to wait till we have more information. I'm not going to rush to action because I well, I see it, I want to do something about it. Well, if we take the 20 seconds, or however long it takes to get a 360 to better by define actually where the fire is, that will save us huge amount of time on the back end. Right, because, number one, we're probably better at getting water to the fire. Number two, we're probably not going to get screwed up in a Mayday situation, and then we can actually do what's best for Mrs Smith, who's likely inside there, and we're not screwing around with trying to fix our own problem.
Speaker 2:I've seen some departments and this really should be the gold standard and you can't pre-plan every single building in your community, but on the pre-plans for the commercial buildings that they are doing, they actually list the critical factors.
Speaker 2:So, right away, when you're bringing your companies up out there as a company officer, battalion chief, as a battalion, however, you're organized, you're talking that language ahead of time with all the members of the company. So, like one of them that I saw was a loading dock area, that the loading dock area is prone to flooding, especially if there's been a sprinkler activation. And they actually had a fire in this facility a number of years ago where a crew fell off the loading dock and they were submerged in about five to six feet of water and it kind of took them a second to get out of it. So that's an important thing to know. So they start listing these things out about the building and the actions they're going to have to take, but they're using our language, the blue card language, when they're pre-planning that, which I really think is a very smart way to do that, because it gets every firefighter in that company or every firefighter in the organization on up talking the same language once again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so kind of to that point is, after we taught, I think maybe in Wilmington Eric Phillips, who's a company officer in Las Vegas, takes that strategic decision-making process and maybe, more critically, the size up part of it and figuring out the critical factors, stuff back to his firehouse and his company in a very low tech way, right With pictures or slides, sits down with his crew from the newest and I know he has rookie or probationary firefighters on his rig regularly to everybody the more senior people in his firehouse and his company, and goes through it and start no, let's start working through this, let's talk and think out loud here, right, and gives them that opportunity, gives them that the tool.
Speaker 1:So you didn't need departmental resources to do this and, trust me, if we're left to our own devices, we usually do stuff in firehouses that we probably all get in trouble for. So this is at least an opportunity to spend doing something or a little bit of time doing something that's constructive and it will pay dividends on the fire ground. I have seen it from an organizational level of training with it deliberately and then being able to measure from one promotional process to the next promotional process, where we had a very deliberate training system in between and seeing a market improvement in understanding fire ground factors, and then and then doing the right stuff afterwards, that I'm convinced it works. So I well, I guess we'll see. We'll see if it works for other people.
Speaker 2:I've seen too where you know under the subset of building, those those different features that a building might have. So ventilation systems. You know you end up with a ventilation system that if you activate it too soon you're actually going to lead to some fire spread. Some of the buildings that were built in the mid to late 80s have ventilation systems built into them that cannot be reset, that those are doors that automatically open or windows that automatically open and if they're accidentally activated you're going to have to go manually shut them, if you're going to shut them at all, and it just depends on the involvement. So that is really good information to have ahead of time.
Speaker 2:And I think the other point of this you know we were talking about the silverback guys talking about the work all the time. Well, this is about the work. If you're in an organization where and you know it when your focus is going down the wrong path and I've seen it happen before where the firefighters are sitting around talking about the politics of the community, or the parks department got this and we didn't, or whatever, that's the time to get them to focus on the critical factors of the buildings in their first two. I mean it's a very simple exercise, like Captain Phillips does, or you know, anybody listening to this can do just load them up, get them out and start start asking those questions when you get in front of the building, even if you don't have a preplan.
Speaker 3:So I think when we talk about critical factors and we can I think we can jump to some of the things that you brought up, chris, because everybody wants to talk about fire and life safety. Right, that's what we say we're there for. That's really the only reason we're there, right? Is it where the fire department and we're there to preserve and save life and property? Right? So you know, when you start talking about critical factors and you can pull up some pictures and, just you know, mock it up, even like with known information or known victims.
Speaker 3:You know that's always a good discussion with the critical factors and I think we've seen that plenty of times where you know maybe fire departments aren't as prepared as they think they are to address some of those factors. Right? So you know we have plenty of organizations that you know that are going to. They're doing a lot of work. We use them a lot on our podcasts. They are pulling people out and they've identified. You know, if we have a, we respond, then we're going to do searches and if we pull somebody out, you know that we did.
Speaker 3:But if we have a known victim, you know they're doing some things with resource because they're like we aren't sure that we had enough resource because we pulled out, well, I mean, some of the data, right, that's out there, whether, whether, no matter where you're getting it, if you find one pretty good chance, there's another one right. So you know how many companies are you losing that are doing work, and you know, and, and, and my neighborhood area and our county, you know terrible event, and it occurred more than once in the last couple of years multi-family apartment complex. They ended up pulling out multiple kids and it's like they just kept coming. And, well, medic units were there but delayed, you know, in one case, more than four kids. Well, the engine company's not leaving them. Like, the kids needed medical attention, they were doing CPR on them, right.
Speaker 3:So it's like, now, what's going on with the fire?
Speaker 3:So when you start, like, having those discussions about the critical factors and it's like, well, yeah, we went there to put the fire out and we're going to do searches and we're going to get all clears, right, that's what we do and we're going to do it in a very organized, in a very organized way and prioritize the work that we're going to do based off of the factors, but when it pops up, okay, we got one victim for an incident commander.
Speaker 3:That's like a trigger right, like, okay, well, engine 17 is probably done and now rescue 201 is with them. And then the next transmission is squad seven. We just found another victim. And it's like, okay, well, now I just now squad seven's committed and is your other medic unit there? Like what exactly is going on with that? So I think when you start having those discussions and going through that process of the strategic decision making model, but with the focus on the critical factors, you know, I think it draws the attention to again back to the work that we do and what does that really mean and how do I make decisions, and you're having that discussion before it actually happens instead of, well, we think we're okay, this is our standard response and we make it work.
Speaker 1:God, I hope I don't find anybody Right, yeah, right, exactly yeah yeah.
Speaker 3:And it's like so on multiple occasions. I think we've had that and experienced that with organizations that are like, yeah, we change how we do business because, yeah, we go there and we search and we, you know we're going to put the fire out, but you, you start losing one company at a time doing patient care with a, with a uh, with a rescue unit or a medical unit or whatever. That has a big impact on what you can do with your incident action plan, because you can only do the work you can do with the people that you got.
Speaker 1:So what if we started talking about fire victims and our incident command and that kind of stuff in the same way that we talk about Maydays, and so we say you better be doing everything right when something goes wrong? Well, what if we have the mentality as I see fire departments as blue card agencies? It says we better be doing everything right when we find a victim. And that means having the right amount of resources there, having companies in the right places and being ready to manage that to the best of our ability. I think sometimes we short change that because we don't fire victims at every fire. Right, and you may run 20, 30, 40 fires without finding a victim, but on that one are you actually ready when you act? When you do, and are you ready for if you find one, expect to find more type of thing.
Speaker 1:So I see us addressing that. And when we say it's a critical factor life safety is a critical factor then we should resource and act as if it is a critical factor, with the intent that we're actually gonna find a victim and when we don't, we don't right. And I'm not saying you know, you should have a general alarm, all units are going to fire just because you think you're gonna find a victim. No, we're gonna do it in an organized way and then, just like in a Mayday, if you come across a victim, in most evolved fire systems there's an automatic response that comes from the dispatch center of sending more resources, right. So shouldn't there maybe be an automatic response to them from a dispatch center?
Speaker 1:Is it if they either serious reports of victims or we actually have real reports of victims from fire companies, that then we adjust automatically with the resources that are coming? So, yeah, I think there's again, it's action that's based on critical factors, but they have to be real and manageable and manageable not just we're gonna do it because we think they're there every single time. Now, when I get there, I'm actually gonna. I'll leave the barn every single time thinking, yeah, I'm going there to save somebody, but when I get there, I'm gonna actually measure whether it's reasonable to think I'm gonna and then put the right action in place.
Speaker 2:And I like the fact that you're coupling fire with smoke, because there's been multiple deaths, fire ground fatalities in the last couple of months where tank water put the fire out but the smoke was such a big problem that it ends up killing three or four or five of the occupants of the building and that's happened in two different places. And talking to those departments, they were like yeah, I didn't take any water to put the fire out, but we had a huge problem managing the victims. We had so many victims that it took multiple companies to manage the patient care on those victims.
Speaker 3:Johnson, you brought that up and we're gonna do everything we can, as quickly as we can, right and prioritize things based off of that, life safety and all of that. And, chris, you'll have to help me with exactly what they're calling it, but the US Fire Administrators Roadshow with NFSA and everybody. Yeah, steve Kerber, I don't know, I've seen it 10 or so times now where we know this right, if you can't get yourself out, the fire department chances of getting you out is not good Like so that's and it's literally going down every day, right.
Speaker 3:And it's like it's not because we're not doing our job, it's because the conditions right, it's because of what's burning the smoke and you know the pushes obviously close your door, sleep your door, close. All that. You gotta have smoke detectors. Shane Ray's push is you better have a sprinkler system, because that's just another piece of it. But that's another critical factor that we gotta stay connected to. That's another one of those latest research. It ain't 1970, no more.
Speaker 3:Like you're not, you ain't gonna be not saying it can happen, but you're probably not pulling grandma out of the room that was on fire and her gonna be alive anymore because of what is burning in there.
Speaker 3:And it can happen. And I'm not saying we're not still gonna do that. But my point is that whole when they're saying that with research, and it's all of those people that are doing this all across the country that are saying it, whether it's FSRI, ul, nist, the US Fire Administrator, shane Ray, I think, chief Leibs, I mean it's a real problem and that's just another critical factor thing. So it's time like how much time do we really have here? And that's when it comes back to the critical thinking, decision-making thing Like this. Ain't that I'm going to pull up and wait 10 minutes and do something. All of this decision-making has to happen in like 10 seconds, 15 seconds, right, and then we're taking immediate action. But if we're going to do that, then you have to have a system and you have to use it all the time and you have to have talked about it right and exercise it.
Speaker 2:You've got to exercise the system and exercise your mind for making those decisions, because that's what needs to get engaged when you pull up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not just having a policy, actually exercising it and knowing how to. So on, what Steve and I think it's actually underplayed right now in the American Fire Service is what Steve Kerber and FSRI is saying in connection with the US Fire Administrator is saying it's never been more dangerous to be inside a structure during a fire and you've never had less time to escape than right now. The fire service better be heating those words. Quite honestly. Just to my point, I wrote those words into my strategic plan. I just did for my organization because I want my community to know this is what we're thinking about. So when I ask you for resources, you understand what I'm trying to, what peril you're actually in if you have a fire in your home. So I think that's incredibly important. And then you mentioned frankly from the FNY.
Speaker 1:So when he was speaking and I've heard it do it at a few different places when he was speaking at the Hazard Zone Conference this past October and he'll be there again this coming October he was talking about the Twin Parks Fire in New York City and I believe it was 19 fatalities.
Speaker 1:I hope I'm saying that correctly and he describes some pretty amazing and heroic work, but what it comes down to was the fire on the third floor was creating smoke conditions on every other floor above it and I think it was like 19 or 20 floors total and people were dying on floors 10, 15 floors above that fire, because every time the crews went in to try and deal with the fire, they're coming across another victim and they're actually having to deal with it. And it wasn't until they were able to say no, no, we have to get to the fire and put the fire out to stop the threat for everybody else in this building that it started to get better and they could start to try and get on top of this reaction. So that putting the fire out thing based on critical factors and the recognition of that, we're not supposing, we're talking about actual incidents that really happened. That's pretty important.
Speaker 2:So I think that's just scratches the surface of when we're talking about the fire ground factors, and especially critical fire ground factors. How do we continue this conversation aside from the podcast, for everyone listening to keep digging into it and keep engaged? We talked about some things to engage, but really, what's next for somebody who's listening to this?
Speaker 3:So I think I mean, John, you're going to put the strategic decision making model on there, right? If you can put the eight critical fire ground factors on there, which is the first box in the strategic decision making model, then people can start that discussion of what does this really mean and what does it really look like. Most of the time it gets breezed over Like, yeah, this is just the process, but there's so much that you can dig into. Yeah, All right, we will.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's, there's, there's tools, and if you really want to get sick of hearing about it, come to one of the workshop, because Eric and I'll talk about it for 16 hours over two days. That's awesome, we'll set it up.
Speaker 2:Good, well, great discussion today, guys. Hey, before we go, let's do a timeless tactical truth. There we go. Ellen Brunassini's timeless tactical truths and today's timeless tactical truth is beware of the chief who says don't do anything until I get there. You know, we think sometimes that that's a relic of the past, but we continue to see incidents unfold in different jurisdictions where either the chief gets on the radio and they start taking command before they're even on the scene and giving orders, or they're literally doing that, just telling everybody to stand by until I get there. So what advice do we have for folks who are living within that system?
Speaker 3:We might run this one a little long, john, but the buck slip just came out. Steve Lester just put out the three C's right Confident, confident and controlled. So it's the first part of it. And if you're dealing with the chief who does this, then they're missing all of that right. They're missing. They're missing the whole thing of what they really can do, and then they don't trust their people, which either that's a training issue they're failing and training their people and and being part of one system and everybody working together, because when the chief gets there, they're they're just re in, they're just reinforcing command that's already been established and supporting the work that's already happened, and it's not like nothing happens until they get there.
Speaker 3:Right, in a lot of systems we hear it all the time there's five companies working before a chief gets there, and sometimes we hear some of these people in these bigger organizations Chris, you worked in one. You get there and there's four companies working. It's like they got it under control. And I'm not even going to. I'm here and if you need me to I'll take it, but it sounds like you got it. So I mean there's all kinds of that. I mean that's the bully thing I know more than you. Most of the time, I think that leads back to the they really don't know shit, and then they. Then there's a trust issue too, and I mean, that's that's, that's my take on it. We have some of that going on in some areas that I know of.
Speaker 1:Yeah it's. You might as well just that chief might as well be just waving a gigantic banner, uh, exclaiming how shitty I've done of a job of training my folks, right, like how, how poorly, uh, I've set them up it's, it's countable, it's accountability model stuff, right. So how poorly I established expectations or expectations or standards, how poorly I've actually trained them, um, that I don't trust them enough to actually do the work without me being there and being able to tell them how, uh, how it should be done and all that other stuff. So it's a, it's a selfish position that that, I see, takes Um and um. They probably, they probably hate his guts at the dinner table just as much as they hate his guts on the fire ground. And um, uh, I don't, yeah, it's, uh, yeah, that's. That's everything. The boss wasn't. I can tell you that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know I worked for a chief in the mid nineties that he was the first one because I think you know we had a lot of you know on the chief. I'm responsible for all this If anything goes bad, so I'm going to be the one to make the decision. But this guy actually said this fire department should run the same today with me here, as if I left for six months and no one should notice, which meant that we were all trained the same way. Whether that was taken command, we knew what tasks to do on the fire ground. I mean, we, we were a well trained machine and when he ended up leaving that department to go to another, the community was coming on glued and he's like you guys are going to be fine because we set this department up for success and everyone's been trained to keep things going just as they are right now. So that that's that um secure type of leader. And I think a lot of times when you see these guys who, uh, don't want to share the knowledge and also don't want to share that decision making responsibility, those are the insecure leaders that we have out there. But if, if you're um, either new to a chief officer position or you're thinking about taking it. I think setting your organization up so that you are prepared, whether you're there or not, is is the main goal I mean, and that's that's really you know, the organization I I just retired from. That's why, uh, several years ago, our first career hires were battalion chiefs. Because we recognize we want leadership on duty every single day and it shouldn't be dependent on three or four chiefs being in town, which a lot of systems out there are. We talk about big systems a lot with with B shifter, but most systems are reliant on somebody coming from home or a mutual aid chief. So, continuing to train your people, getting them up to speed on what incident command truly is, either through blue card hopefully it's through blue card However, that is, you're going to set that department up for success, to make those decisions.
Speaker 2:All right, good one, guys, appreciate everyone being here today. We'll be back soon with another B shifter. Hey, make sure that you look at our show notes. We've got a lot of stuff coming up. So, whether it's the workshops that Chris was talking about, you know we're. We're doing one in Phoenix. We're going to be on the road doing those. Don't forget about the hazard zone conference coming up at the kicks off September 30th and Cincinnati, ohio. Get registered for that Until next time. Thanks so much for listening to B shifter.