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Incident Audio (with Rescue) from Clay Fire Territory
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This episode features Josh Blum and John Vance.
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This episode was recorded August 27, 2024
Listen in as we dissect incident audio from Clay Fire Territory in St. Joseph County, Indiana. Listen how standardized terminology, systematic procedures, and comprehensive training facilitated a seamless response during a fire incident with a found occupant. From strategic command strategies to efficient fire control and victim rescue, this episode is brimming with practical takeaways designed to elevate your Blue Card skills.
Welcome everyone to the B-Shifter podcast. John Vance here along with Josh Bloom, and we are happy to have you here on this Labor Day. See, even when a lot of other people are off work, we're here working for you on this Labor Day. Happy Labor Day, everyone, and thanks for keeping the country moving, and especially those who are on duty today sitting back and joining the podcast. We want to welcome one and all. Thanks for being here on the B-Shifter podcast today. How are you doing, josh?
Speaker 4I'm doing great. It was a great weekend. College football really really back at it.
Speaker 2Yes, you're happy about that and, for the record, josh is an Alabama fan, just in case you didn't know that. So either throw some good mojo Josh's way or give him some hell about that. How's the team looking this year for you? I?
Speaker 4think it's going to be all right. Yeah, new coach, new coach, saving leaving, I think, still giving him a lot of nudging and helping direction. But yeah, I think it's going to be good. I think it's going to be good. I'm an Alabama fan via my. Both of my daughters went to school there and one of them is still going to school there and the other one is now working at UAB Birmingham. That's how I became an Alabama fan eight years ago.
Speaker 4Once you're there and see that it sucks you in the environment, the facility, all of that.
Speaker 2I'm surprised they haven't made you turn in your Ohio citizenship card.
Speaker 4No, there's a whole Crimson Addy group from Cincinnati, like a ton of Crimson Addy people that tailgate down there, cincinnati folks that went to Alabama and now they've come back to Cincinnati and they're working as doctors and lawyers and whatever around the tri-state area.
Speaker 2Exciting thing for us is we are on the countdown, man. It's a month away, or a little little less, for the Blue Card Hazard Zone Conference right there in Ohio, in Sharonville Ohio, outside of Cincinnati, and we are ready, man, I think that we are going to have a record crowd. We have the largest May Day workshop event ever held in the United States is being held at that conference, and certainly I mean talk about that a little bit, because we did have a couple of seats come open. It sold out but then a few people had to drop out, so we have some availability there. What's going to happen at the May Day Workshop?
Speaker 4Yeah, so I think we got three or four seats that came open. It was a travel conflict thing for, you know, people whatever that had signed up. So the May Day Workshop it's our two-day May Day Workshop that we've run and offered a hundred and something times now. You know, in smaller groups. We're really looking forward to this one because we're still going to have the ability there and we're going to break up into smaller groups for a lot of the group work that we do and the simulations. But it's going to be great having hundreds of forward-thinking fire service you know officers, chiefs from Maine to California and Washington to Florida and north of the border from Canada, all in the same room talking about mayday management and you know mayday prevention and looking at line of duty death reports and you know talking a little bit about the work that FSRI is doing on some of the near miss stuff that they're doing.
Speaker 4And I just think it's so important that we at some point we have to just quit having meetings to talk about what we're doing or what has happened and we have to actually do something about it. We have to take action and do something about it. So there's no new ways. I mean we're getting hurt and killed on the fire ground the same now as we have forever. The same now as we have forever. So every one of these workshops we do we take as an opportunity to try to change the mindset of the people who are attending, to get them to become critical thinkers and understand that the incident action plan that we're going to deploy has to be functional but it also has to fit into the fire condition, so you can't be offensive during defensive conditions and really making good, sound decisions, not one size fits all. So yeah, we'll review, you know, several on a due death reports. Look at the FSRI stuff. We'll end up running simulations in three different breakout groups, so we have much smaller groups when we're just running through the simulation piece. All of the instructors that are there that have first-hand experience in line-of-duty death events, and all of them are now Blue Card users so they can talk about what happened and what happened within their organization and what they've done to. You know, keep on track and keep moving forward and try to prevent these things from happening again.
Speaker 4So one of them we do is the Squirrel's Nest Lane Fire. It happened right here in Coleraine Township. Broxerman and Shira died in that basement and we can't, we can't. I don't know how many basements we've died in, but it's too many and you know so many of them are exactly the same Through the door, through the floor, failure to identify the basement, sometimes operating just in offensive positions during defensive conditions. So, yeah, we're really looking forward to those two days, october 1st and 2nd. Then the Cert Lab September 30th. October 1st and 2nd is, you know, oversold so we kind of cut that off. But now we've had some more people want into it. So we're just helping those new organizations start to get some people certified that are trying to figure out what it really looks like. And then, obviously, the conference on the 3rd and 4th. We got 23 or 24 different facilitators, instructors, presenters. Dan from FSRI, chief Lee you know, now retired but talking about really decision-making and critical thinking at mid-rise fires Shane Ray from the National Fire Sprinkler Association coming back because that's a big thing.
Speaker 4You know, just last week, you know, big sprinkler-controlled fire here in the Cincinnati area. So the system works, so we're super excited, like you said, john, much, much larger crowd than we've ever had before. So it's going to be a great gathering, great time to network. We got that Third Eye Brewing event on Thursday night. Network, we got that Third Eye Brewing event on Thursday night. And then anybody who's there, you know we want everybody to take the time and reach out and talk to all the vendors that are going to be present there, because you know them, having space there helps us to offset and keep the price super reasonable for all of you that are attending. And then you know some recent work that we're doing with building another relationship with somebody as we continue to move on is Waldorf University. So an opportunity for you know talking to them there on site and we're looking forward to that relationship. You know, growing that and doing more and more with them, as we, you know, help to develop officers, not only on the fire ground but at every level.
Command System With Blue Card Integration
Speaker 2One of the things that Waldorf is going to be rolling out at the conference is special discounts for blue card users, and those discounts also go to your family. So they're going to give you a lot more information about that, starting at the conference. The other thing that's rolling out at the conference and then we'll end up if you can't make it to the conference we'll end up having a webinar third week of October on this is the after action review module. I know you've been very pumped up about this. You and Eric and the rest of the team have worked very hard to get this after action review module together. Chris Stewart, part of it I don't know who else I'm missing, but I cannot wait for this to go up in live. So just give us a little preview of what this AAR module is all about, and then, of course, at the conference there'll be an entire class on it.
Speaker 4Yeah. So the after action reporting system we actually rolled out like a prototype for people to look at last year at the conference and it's one of those things where you know we shut our old system down and I'm thankful that we did, because it actually gave us an opportunity to make this AAR system so much better. So the after action reporting system prototype that we were showing everybody, I think people liked it. Everybody wanted to get online. I get emails still every week about when's this thing coming out. Where's that? What you showed us is fantastic. We don't have anything like that. We use a survey on a piece of paper or it's the emotional event with the chief yelling at us or somebody making up their own opinion of what they think should have happened or whatever. So there's thousands of hours already gone into this after action reporting system and our goal, as Eric Phillips says all the time, our group's goal is one it has to be user-friendly to firemen. It has to be relatively easy to use. Two, you have to be able to make an effect change from the information that you gather through this after-action reporting system. And three, it's really just about the continuous improvement part. So we reinforce good behavior and try to correct bad behavior. So it's a tool where we can capture audio, we can capture video, we can capture pre-plans Down the road.
Speaker 4We're going to be able to do some extended survey work with it also, just so you could survey every company that was there. So the front end of it is more about the first arriving IC worked with it also, just so you could survey every company that was there. So the front end of it is more about the first arriving IC, division bosses and strategic ICs. And really, talking about, did you hit the benchmarks for, you know, establishing command, evaluating critical fire ground factors, deploying companies correctly, being in the correct strategy, calling for resources. So really, did you use the eight functions of command properly, right?
Speaker 4And then we're going to grow it further so that you could, you know, within your own organization you could do the survey work of gathering additional input from other companies that were there, that were working at the task level, and help to fix task level components and pieces, whether it's a hose deployment problem or an air management problem or communicating on the radio, whatever it is. So, yeah, we're, we're super excited to be able to roll this out at the conference and, like anything, this project also will remain in command function seven for its entire life. So and it's funny because it's after action reporting which really we're doing a review, evaluation and revision, and I'll just say that the program will always be in that same state, because we should always be in a state of fixing ourselves. So what can we do better? So you know, we're super excited about that.
Speaker 2I am, too. I think it's going to be great for continuous improvement. I am, too. I think it's going to be great for continuous improvement, and what the end product is is something that you can pass on to your department right In a training, in a training packet. However, you distribute your training once all that information is put in, then everyone else gets to learn from that incident as well. Is that correct?
Speaker 4So somebody's going to have to do the work on reviewing the incident, but it's the work we already do, right, we do EMS Q&A on EMS reports, so this is similar. So the battalion chief or training chief or whoever is going to do the review on these incidents, based off of the audio that they have available, based off of some known information they have from people who were on the scene some helmet cam video, dash cam video, thermal imaging camera video, pre-plans, you know things that we think are best practice within our own organization when it comes to deployment and what our SOPs, you know, really say. So standard actions based on standard conditions, so that we have a standard outcome. It's going to have a presentation. So once it's built out, it'll kind of roll out and be in.
Speaker 4Look at every single component of the incident, from the size up to assigning companies, to establishing a division, to a strategic IC transferring command, to evaluating priority radio traffic status changes, roof reports, all of all of the key components of Blue Card, which are so many of those things.
Speaker 4I'll just reference back to the latest line of duty death report that just came out a few weeks ago that we pushed out to everybody and shared. When you look at that, it's pretty pointed at what some of those things are when it comes to decision making and communications and accountability, and accountability at every level, tactical and strategic level. So this tool will help us with that and then, like you said, john, we'll be able to, within your own organization, you'll be able to share that across every shift with every person, and then they could review it themselves, or you could use it in presenter mode and present it to a shift you know to review and, like we really started to host out with earlier right, it's a tool so that we can identify what can we do better, because that's what we should always be doing is trying to do better.
Speaker 2So everyone will hear a lot more about this in the coming month or so. We'll have the official rollout sometime in October, we hope. Along with that, there will be a webinar that will instruct everybody on how to use it, to give you a little primer on that and what it's used for, and you'll see it at the conference. If you're at the conference, you'll get a sneak preview and get to learn in person on what the AAR module is all about. Well, today we are here to listen to some audio. Really proud to bring this one to you.
Speaker 2This is from the fire department I started at in 1991 and fought my first fire at, and I got to tell you back in 1991, command was a little sketchy there. But over the years, especially once Chief Schabel got in, we started refining our command process and Clay Fire Territory brought Blue Card in in 2008. So they've been one of the early adopters. This is with a rescue. So we from time to time, when we're either on the road or we get the keyboard warriors that like to think the blue card isn't about a rescue. I think this audio is a, and what ended up happening at the incident is a great illustration of how you put the system into use and use blue card all of its parts. You can do rescue while also doing firefighting. So tell us a little bit about the audio that we're going to listen to today, josh.
Blue Card Command Communication Strategies
Speaker 4Yeah, thanks, clay Fire Department for letting us share this and letting us share your successes that you have within your own organization, because there's not a day goes by that I don't get an email from somebody saying hey, can you send me some audio from a fire department that does blue card? And uh, we've been doing the podcast now for quite a while. We got tons of audio and I love sending it over to people because they get all of that negative, negative vibe from, you know, some of the folks sitting in the dark room, the dark web behind the keyboard, you know, just saying whatever they got to say because they don't even know what blue card is. And, uh, from Las Vegas to Cobb County, georgia, to Vancouver, washington, clay fire territory, deerfield, ohio, hamilton township, ohio. Uh, not too long ago we did one from the Columbus Ohio area. Uh, and I know I'm forgetting people, but I just wanted to name a few because we have tons of audio right and we got I think we've had like seven or eight rescues that we've used now just in the last 12 months, john. So the difference is is it's all coordinated and communicated clearly and we're making sure that we're hitting every component and objective that we should, you know, not just with some single isolated mind frame. So you know, so many people get wrapped around.
Speaker 4Blue card is communications program and communications is one of eight functions of command and really the communications part of it is just where you communicate your incident action plan, your strategy, deployment. You know what exactly are we doing here. I communicate the review, evaluation, revision, right. I use communications and say priority traffic when the incident action plan isn't working and I have something negative to report. So in this case, we hear so many pieces from Clay of you know blue card being used just as it should be and really best practice based on the second edition of fire command and command safety. And you know, as you said, john Clay, very early adopter of blue card, you guys were doing some command training before blue card even, really, you know, came around some, you know forward thinking like what do we, what do we do with training command officer? You know forward thinking like what do we, what do we do with training command officer? So 2008, uh, I think that's when the first train, the trainer was actually at play and then you know the brunas innings about lived there for, you know, several years, you know, as it was being refined, because we always live in a state of fixing ourselves, what we were doing before, what we were doing yesterday. If we can do it better today, then by golly that's what we should doing before, what we were doing yesterday. If we can do it better today, then by golly that's what we should be doing and that's why blue card is in it. I've lost track. Eight, nine, 10th, 12th, 15th revision right, Because version number one I remember sitting in the train, the trainer, it's like there's no basements and it's like, well, we got to fix that right now. So basements gets fixed right. And then over the years all these other things get fixed to address all the critical factors that people see all across the country. And now you know even the ARF piece. Right, we've added ARF module. That'll be coming out because that's a little bit different than the residential stuff.
Speaker 4So play fire department, five stations, they got two battalions on duty. Their admin chiefs, you know, make runs. They live in the district. So if they're available, you know they make runs. Everybody's trained with the system. Their SOPs mimic, you know the system. They're not afraid to make a change and say, hey, we can do this better. I know the chief. That was there. Yeah, so not too long ago, you know, had the. You better be doing everything right when something goes wrong and I think when your organization, you know, strives for that and pushes for that every day, then you know it helps us to be successful too that we're we're not out there Taking risk that doesn't need to be taken.
Speaker 4So in this case, residential single family work and fire, I will say it's a non-hydrogenated area. So I love throwing that out there because sometimes we also get the. Well, it's a Phoenix fire department system, it came from Phoenix and it's like well, the water supply, no matter how you get it, you just have to get it right, whether you have a pressurized system or you don't. Well, in clay, what? 50% of the area, 40% of the area you know, doesn't have pressurized water. So they've done some things in building out, really in command function, one deployment but how they buy apparatus to make sure that their apparatus has appropriate amount of water and that they're set up at the task and tactical level to address water supply.
Effective Incident Command Communication Training
Speaker 4So you hear that on here and I love hearing that because so many people are like well, where's the water supply, where's this, where's that? How do you do whatever? And it's like, well, your own organization just has to figure out like what all of those parts and pieces look like, and we really don't tell you how to do that. We just say you need to have a sustained water supply. So in this case they set up and had probably 7 000 gallons on the ground in you know seven or eight minutes, and it's like, well, I can't put out a 1500 square foot house fire. Quite frankly, as an old chief of mine used to say, if we can't get it with that 750 gallons, it's not worth fighting. So you know, it was just a line that he said. But uh, I can appreciate that now you know, knowing what I know and oftentimes sitting on fires for a long time, when 750 gallons doesn't get it right.
Speaker 2I think the remarkable thing about this that we get asked about to a lot is what if the chief is the first one there? And in this case it was an admin chief. The division chief of EMS was on his way to work. He happened to be the first arriver, so you'll also get to hear how that goes. So we'll take you to that audio right now. This is Clay Fire Territory in St Joseph County, Indiana 7 Wade Boulevard.
Speaker 1Respond on fire ground 1. 7, 52 hours.
Speaker 3Fire dispatch 206.
Speaker 1206.
Speaker 3On the scene, Wake Boulevard, we have a small single-story residential smoke showing 206 will have Wake Command.
Speaker 1Companies will be offensive 206 is on scene of a small single-story residential structure. Smoke is showing. 206 will be wake command. Companies will be in offenses.
Speaker 3Engine 22,. Come in Engine 22,. Go ahead. It's going to be the house to the east of my truck. Go and pull out line for primary search and fire control, taker 22, level 1.
Speaker 3Taker 22,. Pull up and drop your port of tank Copy. I'm dropping my port of tank Taker 22, level 1. Taker 22 from command, whatever you dress out, and take alpha Taker 22,. Cleared on taking alpha Command. Engine 21, level 1. Copy engine 21. One Copy engine 21. We'll have you come up and pull a second line off of engine 22 to the front yard. Let's know where to go once we figure out where we get. Make entry. Medic 21 is level one, medic 21,. I've got you level one, medic 21,.
Speaker 4Level one Command from engine 22.
Speaker 3Engine 22, go, 360, complete. Got a fire in the back room. We're going into the front door Copy engine 22,. 360's, complete Fire's in the back room. And you're going into the alpha side Truck 21,. Command Go, truck 21. Can you bring your personnel up while we'll have you go on deck alpha Clear, on deck alpha Truck 21. Engine 21,. Come in. Go, engine 21. Go, command Train 21. Right now, can you guys just help Engine 22 get that line in place. We'll keep that second line in the front yard. That's affirmative, we're doing that right now. Command from Engine 23,. Priority traffic Engine 22,. Go, we've got a victim. We're going to be getting him out the front door. Do you need engines to come in behind us? Switch this fire off. Copy Engine 22 with a victim coming out the front door. Engine 21,. Take the place of Engine 22. Medic 21,. Command. Go ahead, position your ambulance and come to the front yard of the cop for patient care Medic 21 copies front yard Fire.
Speaker 3dispatch from wake command.
Speaker 1Wake command.
Speaker 3Can you upgrade the alarm?
Speaker 1Clear.
Speaker 3Engine 23 is level one Copy engine 23. We're going to bring your career up to go on deck Alpha Side.
Speaker 1Clay Engine 24. Medic, 24. 7, wade Boulevard Structure fire Residence 19,097 Wade Boulevard. Respond on fire ground 1. 800 hours.
Speaker 3Okay, on deck Alpha 5. Torque 21,. Command Torque 21,. Go Torque 21,. I'm going to have you assist with the victim removal. If Medic 21 needs any patient care, we're on September rules. You're in place. You're in place. You have engine 21 on fire attack Truck 21 and engine 22 on victim removal. Medic 21 is coming up for patient care. We also are going to have engine 23 on deck Truck 21,. Victims removed. Medic needs two people to go Clear on the victims when extricated Truck 21. Just stay with medic 21 and send your personnel.
Speaker 1We command, try dispatch.
Speaker 3Try dispatch.
Speaker 1First 10 minute notification.
Speaker 3Clear on 10 minutes. We're still offensive.
Speaker 4Engine 24 is level 1.
Speaker 3Copy Engine 24 level 1. Bring your personnel up wherever you go on deck in the front yard. Clear on deck front yard. Medic 24 is going to be level 1. Copy Medic 24,. Come up and set up rehab in the front yard of the west of the house House. This is Medi 24. We'll come after you, michael. We have all three to the first floor.
Speaker 2All right, let's start off there with that initial radio report. As we pointed out before, we started rolling audio from a division chief on their way to work, so it wasn't even somebody who's part of the daily response, but part of the overall response for the department.
Effective Incident Response Communication Strategies
Speaker 4Yeah. So I think it just shows that everybody in their organization operates from the same plan and they're all trained and they're all using the system right. So there was no confusion, standard terminology. So that chief gets there, does a good size up based off of what he's going to do, right, and then the next communication he made it very clear to that engine what he wanted them to do. So if you were following the communications board, really he hit every single box in the initial radio report. It's just how it came out right. So he wasn't a task level unit getting there saying what he was going to do on an engine, he was chief getting there giving a size up and then just telling the engine. You know what he wanted them to do and really what was going on. Uh, I don't want to, not, I want to talk about the dispatch piece here a little bit, because that initial radio report was solid, and then dispatch verbatim, word for word, following the order model, repeated it back, right. So you know that's so important, I think, on the front end, so that everybody gets to hear the critical factors of what is going on there. And then what are we doing to work through and solve the problem. So we deploy in our system based off the critical factors. So if I got, example, I got a fire on the first floor. I'm not taking a hand line to the third floor, I'm not doing a bunch of extra work, you know, just because, right, so that was really good. So all those companies you know are getting assigned this was like seven, six or seven minutes of audio but was really over about a 14 minute span. So you know that was really compressed because all of the, all of the airtime that was in between these transmission was gone. The only thing we listened to was when the, when the radio was keyed and every transmission that they had was a valuable piece for everybody on the. So, uh, you know a couple of companies you know are piling in there yeah, level one it sounded like, but really that again that was over, you know, a pretty big span of time.
Speaker 4So engine 22 got their assignment to get a line in primary search, fire control. Uh, and they're doing primary search and fire control and they find a victim on the way to find the fire, to put it out, because that's what search should start with, is the search starts with. We're going to find the fire, put it out and then work back from the most hazardous spot. So they were doing both primary search and fire control and before they got to the seat of the fire they found the victim Because the system was in place. They were putting somebody on deck to be next. They were stretching another line. They were able to get a company right behind them. So before I jump ahead too far, we heard tanker 22, you know level one, and command gave them that assignment drop your tank right there. And in their system at that point they had more than enough water on the ground sitting there for the building size and the fire load that they had going. So I mean they had an adequate water supply established there. So we hear that transmission from engine 22 with priority traffic that we got a victim and then gave some good needs. Right, we're coming out the alpha side. And then what they needed as far as hey, we need somebody to still come in here and put this fire out. Well, that next due company behind them heard that they were already getting the hand line off and going to the front door on the alpha side. So it was real easy for them just to pick that up and to become fire attack while they were bringing the victim out.
Speaker 4So we heard truck 21 get assigned on deck. So now they're right there in position to get the next assignment. They had a fire in a room but now they got a victim. So truck 21 worked with medic 21 and supported them. And we hear them communicate hey, they're going to need two people to go to the hospital. So command, you know, very clearly just said okay, we'll take you out of service, you just go ahead and go with them. And then, as we, you know, listen through all of the rest of it. You know we got EMS assigned. We still got companies back into the on-deck position. We heard a status change from engine 21 that we have an all clear of all of the rest of the first floor, which that's all it was. And we have, we have fire under control. So those are two of the benchmarks right, and as a strategic IC, you're sitting there seeing this building, so you're seeing what's going on with the conditions. So battalion two got assigned in there, right In the mix of it, and you know some people could talk about that.
Speaker 4You know I don't assign a battalion because the work wasn't there or I only do it if there's more than three companies, right. So in so many systems they exercise it, because the more you exercise it the better off you're going to be with it. Right, and as long as the division boss stays in their lane and stays at the tactical level and does the division boss work, then it's fine. And in this case I'm sure the incident commander was happy that he assigned a division boss and had somebody in Alpha that was now face-to-face and could handle those companies that were there on the Alpha side. So command did a fantastic job of giving Battalion 2 the rundown of these are the units that are working for you and Battalion 2 had already known of these are the units that are working for you, and Battalion 2 had already known what the assignment was going to be, where they were going, didn't know who was going to be working for him exactly, but heard all of the work that was happening and heard the victim part of it, right.
Speaker 4So getting that middle level division boss there, so important for accountability purposes, it drives down radio traffic. You know it's that, feel it, taste it, touch it, as I like to say, you know, for the division boss it's just, it's just another layer. So, um, this is a 100 for the clay fire department. You know, in my view, um, and you know clearly they, they proved and here not that they have to prove or show anybody anything, but they proved that they are using the system, you know, to its fullest, and you don't have events like this where, as Chief Lester would say, the three C's right. That incident commander, definitely you know he gets the three C's. So, yeah, great job.
Speaker 2One of the things that we always talk about is if we find a victim upgrading that alarm and that's been true of every department I've ever been with. It was true at Clay 12 years ago when I was working there, and he did it, he automatically knew hey, I'm going to have a medic and probably a company out of commission. I need more resources here, even though the fire problem was something that they could control. But he knew automatically because that's what was discussed ahead of time and that's the way they train and practice is hey, I need somebody else here, at least another wave of personnel and equipment. And calling for that was very important and that was that Medic 21 and Engine 24 that got there rather quickly.
Speaker 2The other thing is and Steve Lester and Grant Light and I were talking about a couple podcasts ago about the staff chiefs that don't train, because we see systems out there where the staff chiefs will respond, but they are so far outside of the orbit of the rest of the department that their presence really just causes chaos because they're not speaking the same language or the command system they fall back into using was the 1997 command system the department used and they're not at all up to date on what's going on with blue card and a lot of times these folks have gone to blue card training but because they don't do their ongoing training, they fall back to what they know or what they're most comfortable with.
Speaker 2And in this case I think was a good example after we kind of dished on maybe office chief should stay in the office a couple weeks ago that this is an office chief that is more than welcome on the fire ground because they actually train like everybody else does and they participate in the ongoing training and they make sure that they're up to speed. So Chief Kraft, who's their division chief of EMS, did a wonderful job here as the first driver, keeping it cool and calm and not getting out of sorts when he discovered it was a fire. It was not dispatched with entrapment. I think the entrapment was something that the company found when they went in, so it wasn't something they were expecting. But everything just flowed because they use the system, they've worked with the system, they practice the system all the time, so calling that priority traffic once the victim was located really wasn't a surprise to anybody and they just use the system to make it work and get that person out.
Speaker 4I don't know that anybody expects to find the victim, right, but in this case it sounded like right that they expected to find a victim, which that's just because of the system. Right, they practice the system, they're comfortable with it, they go through sets and reps with it and they remain calm. That priority traffic was no different than them calling priority traffic for a fire in the attic. Right, it was very clear. The transmission wasn't garbled. Command heard it on the first time that they transmitted.
Speaker 4The whole prefacing your report is important because when you say priority traffic and it means something everybody's like, oh, what does this mean? Because if I'm on deck, I'm probably going to be doing some work, right, whereas so often some of the other things urgent and emergency traffic gets abused, right, and they start screaming urgent because they just want priority on the radio for whatever reason. Right, and I'm going to go back to the we're professionals and we should never be screaming on the radio. We should be professionals, right, and we're I'm going to go back to the we're professionals and we should never be screaming on the radio. We should be professionals, right, calm and competent in our job duties. So yeah, great, great job, great job here by Clay Fire Department, as I would only expect.
Speaker 2All right, it's time now for a timeless tactical truth, and today's timeless tactical truth from Alan Brunasini. Measurements should give the participants self-control. I think, uh, talking about our measurement of the aar module and the other ways that we measure success using blue card, this one could be talked about. Measurements should give the participants self-control. What kind of measurements would would help give a participant in the fire ground activity self-control? Josh?
Speaker 4I think it comes down to you know, first of all, with me this is a positive reinforcement thing, right? So how well somebody is doing and making sure that we're positively reinforcing good behavior, but that we're willing to work on and fix, you know, behavior that's not so good. And then really the the way that we do that when we say bad behavior, uh, I always like to throw in that really we're being nice to people when we're fixing bad behavior, because we're trying to help, we're trying to help them, right, we're trying to build their confidence. So, uh, you didn't do. If we start something off negative all the time, we're not going to be very successful, right, If it's all, if it's always negative. So you know, with the after action reporting thing, you know 90% of this looks really good. But again, you didn't say, you didn't say strategy. So we really need to work on that. So we're going to focus and work on as an organization that we make sure we declare strategy or we don't do very well with making a resource determination. So we're going to work on that. So identifying things that we're doing well and not abandoning those when it comes to training, but basically reinforcing those things that we're doing well, but then really giving focus to things that we need to do better.
Speaker 4And I think a piece of that measurement is how do we identify what we can do better? And it doesn't have to be failure, and I'm, I'm, I'm so tired of hearing well, nobody got hurt, and the you know, the building didn't burn down, and it's like geez, is that where we're at? Really, you know, in my part of the world you get paid a hundred thousand dollars a year to be a firefighter, paramedic, and that's that's, that's your statement, and it's like no, we could be in a state of always trying to do better. So, whether it's getting our mask on faster, getting a line stretched faster, communicate, being calmer on the radio, giving more concise, clear assignments, being more comfortable talking on the radio when we're on a mask, using all the equipment we have available. So I think there's so many things that really fit into this, but I think, when you, when you talk about measurement, a piece of it with with this tactical truth anyway, uh, measurement of, okay, that's good, it makes me feel good, and then we're going to keep doing that, Um, and then really, what I, what I hit on the.
Speaker 4This is what we're going to do better. Not that we failed, not that we suck, not that this was the worst thing in the world, but saying, hey, we can do better. Right, and whenever we reach a point in our organization where we're like, oh, we can't do no better, then it's time to hang it up, because you're sliding on a slippery slope.
Speaker 2All right. Well, that wraps up this B Shifter podcast. We want to wish everyone a happy Labor Day once again, and hopefully you had a happy and safe Labor Day weekend as we go forward into the new week. Have a great week. We'll be back here next week. We want to thank the Clay Fire Territory for giving us the audio today that we listened to. Excellent job and until next time. Thanks so much for listening to the B Shifter Podcast.