Recruits and Command

This episode, Josh Blum, Chris Stewart and John Vance connect recruit training to stronger incident command by showing how day-one decision making, radio discipline, and functional evolutions create safer firegrounds. Along the way we share first-arriver expectations, Mayday triggers, air management, and the myth of “just do work.”

• day-one radio use and communication norms
• building decision-making through functional evolutions
• size-up, critical factors, and risk choices
• priority traffic, Mayday structure, and channel discipline
• problem solving under pressure
• air management triggers and round-trip ticket planning
• accountability at task, tactical, and strategic levels
• aligning field training officers with academy standards
• clarifying “alien abduction” and preventing freelancing

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This episode was recorded on March 10, 2026.

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Transcript

Welcome And Updates From The Field

SPEAKER_01 0:48

This is the B Shifter Podcast. John Vance, Josh Boom, and Chris Stewart here today. Thanks for joining us. Today we are going to be talking about how effective recruit training creates a better incident command system and commanders. Before we get into that, let's check in with our guys today. How are you doing, Josh? I'm doing good.

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Really good. Busy. Weather's finally starting to turn here in Cincinnati, so that's good. Excellent. We got the group coming in here next week. 17, 16 or 17 on a train to trainer class. So that'll be good getting more and more folks from all around our region and in Ohio trained up. And then I got, I think I got nine people on a waiting list. So I'll be figuring that out to put another class together for this region. And then the the I got a question calls, you know, the the hey, can I call you? I got a question, you know, asking about a train and trainer. Then there's then they say, What's the chances of us hosting a train a Mayday workshop? We can do it, but our schedule is filling up. I mean, we're we have classes every single month through the end of the year, so it's we have plenty of availability to do classes, but every day that goes by and people book classes, you know, it gets more and more limited. So if you're looking to do something, reach out.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

b shifter.com has all the dates. Uh, I don't know. There have been a few new classes posted in the last couple of weeks. Many of the classes filling up. Uh, we have one coming up in Sonohomish County, Washington that has been added. So uh get on there and check that one out. That that would be a workshop class. And uh we continue to add things, so look look for them in your region. Also, hey, on the buck slip this week, we announced we have a brand new CE that's out, so on traffic incident management systems. So that's there, and then we have revamped our download center at b shifter.com. So very easy to navigate now. More resources for you for free. It's very shareable for folks that are even not blue card users. So that's at bshifter.com. Chris, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 2:58

I am doing very well, happy to be here. Uh, Josh was talking about weather. I just saw last night it's gonna be a hundred degrees here next week. So I'm not real happy about that, but other than that, we're gonna keep plugging along.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

You were on Siberia duty for a while, though. What would you rather have? 100 degrees or the shores of Lake Michigan with 20 below wind chills.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Yeah, you know, I noticed the other day from January to February, I I went on a hundred degree temperature swing from like 10 below to 90 degrees, you know, between two classes in less than 60 days. I thought that was kind of interesting.

How Recruit Training Shapes Command

SPEAKER_01 3:37

Yeah, that's that's fun. I was pretty much in the same climate last week. We were in Moses Lake, Washington, which is about 90 miles west of Spokane. A great group of people there, really bolstering up their command system, uh making a ton of improvements. They have added battalion chiefs now to each shift. So those battalion chiefs are truly the leaders now of Moses Lake, leading, leading the command function of their department. And then we also had some other folks from like Missoula, Montana, Tumwater, Washington, Olympia, Washington. So it was really great to get up to that region, see those folks. They are they are uh great to have in class, very serious students when it comes to uh applying the the the science and art of command. So it was uh really a great week with them and Moses Lake, and we want to thank them for hosting us there. So getting into today's topic, how does effective recruit training create a better incident command system and commanders? Who would like to start this one off?

Day-One Radio Use And Communication Culture

SPEAKER_02 4:40

Well, I I'll just start it, and I know Chris has got some lengthy experience with you know in this topic as well, but it shouldn't be a nothing that we do should be a secret. And I think sometimes in the fire service we we keep things a secret from people, or you're not there yet, so we're not gonna, you know, we're not gonna tell you or whatever. And you know, this topic of really command training and communications, day one, in my opinion, it should start, it should really start on day one, right? And and in some ways it does start on day one, but you know, sometimes I think it's the history, and uh, we're this paramilitary organization, and we're we're gonna beat you down through, you know, recruit training. And it's like, uh maybe we should we should probably involve the folks and let them know why we do what we do and and start that right from the beginning. So depending on your your perspective of command, of I'm here and I'm in charge, view, or I'm here and I'm part of the team and we're all going to do this together, view, right? So, you know, one of the things that that comes to my mind when we talk about you know command and communications, we've all been to plenty of of incidents and on the fire ground where people said or didn't say something and you wonder why. And I think oftentimes we should look in the mirror of well, we never told them when to say something or how to say something or why to say something, right? It's it's more like all the task level is just the task level, and we just want you to do work. And it's like, well, there's there's way more to it. And it kind of comes back to the to the the really some critical thinking parts and pieces, right? Like I want to I want somebody to know why they're doing what they're doing, not just how to do it. So I think that's why it becomes important in recruit training right from day one that that we in that we engage students in communications and the command system and process. And I think it makes me laugh that that and and and I think most systems, and I think it's in it in N FPA 1001, even that you have to a pro qual is you have to be NEMS 100, 200, 700, 800. And it's like, well, you're teaching them some basic national disaster command stuff, you know, in a lot of cases before they could even come to class. They have to, you know, produce these certificates before they can even sign up to go to if they're going to like a recruit academy at a vocational school, and and probably the same thing I think applies when when they're going oftentimes to an academy at a fire department, like you know, in Phoenix or Chris work, maybe. I mean, uh it it's uh it's kind of all over the place, kind of the authority having jurisdiction to kind of make some judgment with that. But that that's the that made it in there somehow, and nobody I think really knows why, but it's there. And it's like, well, let's teach them the things that they need to know and that will help them on the fire ground, not maybe some of all these other things. Or or in addition to, yeah, you have to do these NIMS parts and pieces, you have to go through these other pieces, and it's actually listed in NFPA 1001, and understanding and operating within incident command systems, and it gives you know some detail. And then the fire service comms and communications piece that's also listed in there is you know one of the skills in NFPA 1001. And it's interesting to me that in the fire service and comms, you know, it talks about uh incident reporting in there, but it also and I never noticed it, but uh as I was reading it last night, it talks about after action reporting. So we could kind of hit on that a little bit, but big picture locally here, Colerain Township, every the recruit class, every morning. They get their every morning the recruit gets their radio. That's their radio for the day. And if there's a need for them to communicate on the radio, it's expected that they're gonna communicate on the radio, right? But we teach them from day one this is when you communicate, and this is when you don't communicate, and this is how you communicate. So I know we're gonna dive into it further, but some things that that we see that works getting recruits trained up on what they need to know and understand when it comes to command training and communication.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

So it's interesting that when I think about when I joined the fire service, we had just a couple of radios, so we were never taught how to talk on the radio. That was that was a much later skill because we we weren't given a radio. And I actually had a superior officer routinely say, We are on a need-to-know basis around here, and you don't need to know. And with our program, we're always saying start with why. So we didn't know why we were doing a lot of the things that we were doing because we were never told why we were doing it. We used to affectionately call that the teabag of knowledge, and you could you could take that as far as you want to in your mind, Chris. Over to you. So, you know, what what do you see in the recruit academy and and the importance of this training?

Decision-Making Foundations For Recruits

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Well, I guess I'm gonna take this kind of like we do with a lot of other stuff, specifically the silverback, is if we're gonna start answering these questions about you know when we should do things and why we should do things, let's let's go to the work. And so, what is the work that we're looking to do, especially when we talk about recruit firefighters and then and then them leaving the academy and then going out and working on a rig, right? And and being a functioning uh member of that, of that company or that team, right? So, what are the things that we're gonna need them to know? Is we need them to know some fundamental decision making, right? Because they are gonna be put in positions to where, in spite of what everybody may believe or think, that company officer is not going to have the ability to control the mind of that recruit firefighter, that probationary firefighter, and be there to make every single decision that they're gonna come across on the fire ground. They're gonna have to make some decisions for themselves, like the big ones, the directional ones, the strategic ones should be made and the company officer should communicate that, right? But but what but when we they start doing work either with other firefighters or maybe, maybe, maybe by themselves. You're in a system where you have you know three people on the rig, and the only firefighter on that rig is that probationary member. They're gonna have to make some decisions for themselves. So the the our our most basic level of of training, which typically is recruit academies or training academies, needs to start working on that decision making, right? We spend so much time on that, all that I'm gonna call it performative nonsense of the way we act and the way we treat the recruits, and we we we create that paramilitary, you know, perception, I guess what we'll call that. But oftentimes, in my experience, that has nothing to do with the recruits. That has everything to do with the training staff and the individuals. That's just the way they want to act. That's the way they want to behave. They they either were taught that and they're like, well, I guess that's what we're supposed to do, or they truly get some weird high off of it. So they they love walking around doing that and yelling at people. If you're actually focused on the recruits and making decisions, I I can hold a recruit uh highly accountable for their performance or their behavior and never ever have to get mad and never ever have to raise my voice and never ever have to act a fool in order to do that. I guess me and our the training academy I was responsible for are what one of our standards was is we are training them to do our job someday. So if they're learning how to be a recruit training officer right now, be in their in their first hand experience, I want them to learn how to really do it so that we can be more effective with it down the road, or they can be more effective with it down the road. So when we start talking about decisions, we need to give them some type of foundation and some type of understanding of how to make these decisions. Then those decisions are gonna connect and they're gonna learn from experience in their decisions, the good ones, the bad ones. We got to be able to review it and you know, challenge it and all that, and not necessarily in a negative way, but in a real way of how we're gonna learn. Because when they start to do that systematically, fundamentally, every single time they they run on an incident, well, they're building the skills to eventually become an incident commander. Now, some of them are gonna do it better than others. There's no doubt about that, right? And some of them just aren't gonna be great at it, or or they may be great at it, they may want nothing to do with being an officer or being an IC, and that's just fine, right? But the the foundational decision making that we that we create in the training academy, that we create in probationary and new firefighters, is the foundation for making decisions as an IC, specifically an IC one, and then eventually an IC number two, right? So we have to actually help them formulate around that around the fire ground. Uh they've got to be able to do things like actually size the incident up for themselves and determine the critical factors. And those are gonna be directly related to the task that they're expected to accomplish on the fire ground, right? So if my job is getting the line off the rig, getting it to the position where we need to, where we're gonna make entry, and we need to decide when and how we're gonna flow water, we need to decide when and how we're going to engage in search. We all of those things, I need them to have some general understanding of that decision making. So I have to teach it in small pieces of, hey, here's how you do fire, here's how you do fireground size up. Here are the things that you're looking for, here are the things that we care about, here are the background things like building construction, occup uh types of occupancies, information about victims and and and rescue things, fire behavior. We need to we need to talk about all that as a foundation because those are gonna influence those decisions that they make more heavily uh when they lack experience. But as they gain experience, they're gonna be able to couple that maybe more effectively together. So we need to spend time with them on teaching them those fundamentals of how to do it. And then we need to give them the opportunity to exercise it. And then that's why in the world that I lived in, it was we we called it functional evolutions, right? So this is where you're putting it all together. All the the simple tasks that we teach in the academy, we we put it all together as you we show up, we evaluate the incident, we decide what we're going to do, we start to execute it, right? With other companies in concert at the same time. And and then and then we we do it like we should do it on the fire ground, and or in a way that we should do it on the fire ground. So it becomes this system and process where they may not fully understand the bigger picture of this, why it's so important that I'm learning this, but I I have firsthand experience that starting that at a functional level in the recruit academy tends to make better thinking and decision making at the firefighter level. And then it tends to make better thinking and better decision making at the company officer level. And when you have a kind of a holistic system where you have at the you have a fantastic command training system where you're doing it regularly, you clearly understand the standards, you're persistently exercising it and you're monitoring how you do it out in the field, and you couple that together with recruit training that is teaching those fundamentals of decision making. You you you're gonna make you're gonna help them make decisions about risk management at the recruit level. They may not fully know and understand exactly what it is, but it helps them make way better uh risk management decisions later in their career when they're responsible for more things or more people. And and so the striving to create that system, like a true ecosystem of top-to-bottom effective decision making really then starts to impact incident command and the incident commander's decision making. So I think that's kind of the way I at least I see it, and the way I experienced in a nutshell and the things that we you know we were striving for, you know, 100 years when I was doing it.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

How do you integrate it? It is and you were you were saying organically, so you do you would you just work it if you if you were if you were the world's training director, would you just integrate it naturally into areas or would there'd be a specific module or is it both? What what really would be the best practice in in developing that training for the recruit?

From Skills To Functional Evolutions

SPEAKER_00 17:31

So for us is we took a 15-week training academy and we basically we broke it in half. And it wasn't quite half, it was maybe you know 60, 40. The first 40% of the recruit training academy was on fundamental skills, drawing a bottle, stretching a line, throwing a ladder, operating forcible entry tools, operating power tools, ventilation, those types of things. And we got to a point where we we call it midterms. All right, everybody has to demonstrate proficiency at these individual skills right now. And so they go through all that, they demonstrate their proficiency. The vast majority were able to. There were definitely some that could not, and when they couldn't, you know, we had to have the conversation about that. I don't think this is the the job for you. And then once we moved on, then it all became functional. And that's where we started talking about these things, is we would couple together these the the the skills with now thinking. And so one of my one of the one of the training officers that worked for me down there, he's not a he's he's the one of the absolute best RTOs that I I was ever around down there. But he's not he's not he's not super educated. He knows how to get shit done, but he's not one of those super educated smart guys. And so he goes, you know what, we're just gonna have to have a put the fire out class. And I'm like, okay, what the heck is that? And he explains it to me. And so he starts building the foundation of them understanding some stuff about building construction, understanding, spending a lot of time on fire behavior, spending a lot of time on connecting all the dots of these physical skills, and then we go out and exercise it. And they build scenarios where they actually have to think their way through some things to be able to be more effective. There's gonna be an officer there helping them lead them, but they're gonna expect the recruits and the firefighters to make those decisions and they're gonna go with those decisions, right? So we spend it, we we would spend a lot of time looking at things. This is kind of at the beginning of social media, and this was kind of the beginning of YouTube and all those. And so we had access to a lot more, you know, material to be able to look at. And so we could we figure out in and in my time there, we one of the big things we did is when recruit showed up, they got issued an iPad. And so on the iPad hollowed all their training material, then it had also the ability to view all this stuff that we wanted them to look at, and then they could take it home with them and and review it when they weren't sitting in class, and so and then start to exercise those things. So we introduced strategic decision making, not as much as we would as for a company officer, but we we were heavy on size up and critical factors. We asked them risk management questions, you know, where where should you be, at least getting them into understanding that? And then, okay, based on that, what what action, what should we be doing here? And man, I'm telling you, if you raise the bar a little bit, especially when they're new with regards to thinking and and and all of the skills, right? Physical and mental skills, they tend to meet it. They're pretty excited, they're they're they're motivated. There aren't a lot of barriers for them. They want to become firefighters, they want to go ride on big red, right? So they they did a pretty good job at it. Now, there's this is it's the same laws apply to this as they do society. There's a certain percentage that are going to be C students, and they're always going to be C students. Fine, make them the best C student you can. Then we we we we kind of need them in a way to to balance things out, and so uh we should spend time with that. So if we functionally break up the academy and we start to become very deliberate in what and how we're training folks to do things, we get way better outcomes. And it was very cool to see at the end of the recruit academy when they left what they knew. But then then we have a whole bunch of probationary uh training modules that they go through in their nine months on probation to see them actually develop and apply this stuff out in the real world. So it's pretty good. There's there's a few challenges with it, right? It's trying to get the the field training officers to keep pace with what the recruits are learning because oftentimes they're behind, they're lagging behind what the what the recruits are learning. And so they kind of get in the way a little bit, not necessarily purposely, but because you know they're they're they're not moving at the same pace as the recruits, or maybe the recruit training officers are. So we have to spend time training them. I mean, it becomes this interesting dynamic, but but it is manageable. And in the end, you create people that are better prepared to actually make decisions and utilize the incident command system than than if you just wait until, you know, hey, I'm gonna take the the the officers test and I better start, I better start looking at this incident command thing. Well, no, build it into the decision making part at the beginning, and they're doing the same exact thing. Now you can just be more specific about now, you're gonna play the role of an IC, and these are the these are the functions and responsibilities of that IC. So it it really does a pretty good job of connecting it, at least in my experience.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

Josh, what have you seen? Because I I I think your recruit academy is is a lot of times consolidated with other departments and and or have been you know parts of other departments. So what what's your experience been with that kind of training?

Size-Up, Critical Factors, And Risk

SPEAKER_02 23:08

So I think when we it kind of reminds me of a podcast that you all just did of the evaluating critical fire ground factor. So standard conditions for standard and then standard action, right? So like Chris was kind of talking about on that front end teaching them all these you know basic fundamental things, you know, donning their gear, getting an air pack on, stretching a line all of that. But then at some point that trigger point of they they know how to do that, but then connecting it back to when are they going to do it and why are they going to do it. So that's that evaluation of the critical factors piece. So what are these standard conditions that we see at houses, apartment buildings, drip malls, all of this so one thing locally that happens is they use blue card sets and reps or they just use engine one's view oftentimes with all the recruits in a room or break out into into smaller groups and have discussion on here's uh residential SEM two what are the critical factors that you're looking at just from the outside so just basic things, right? We're not we're not expecting them to be the acting officer or the write up officer but we're preparing them for the potentially their their next job and I I think connecting the dots of typically in our area you you know you're you're firefighter recruit you become a firefighter depending on what organization it is after so many years you can test to become fire apparatus operator or ATO one or the other well if we're training these people all along it puts them in that much better of a of a place to make decisions. So when they become an engine operator but they had this training on the front end as a recruit it it puts them in a better place. So what are they looking for? Why are we doing what we're doing? What's apparatus positioning and placement look like it gets them thinking maybe a little bit more like their company officer. And then you know it really is is preparing them to be in that position to make those decisions because at any given point the officer's not there now what? Well as Eric Phillips says you're not just going to not do anything. So what are you going to do? So it comes back to that thinking part I think of that we keep kind of throwing around too of what does that SDM class look like for firefighters? Like their application of strategic decision making using that using that same model but they're not looking at maybe the 3000 foot level they're looking at you know that maybe the task and tactical component that's happening you know right in front of them. So we see we see that work locally well we've shared a couple of incidents recently where most organizations around us in this Hamlin County Cincinnati tri-state area they're training everybody on their fire department they're putting everybody through at some point all of Blue card so the city of Springdale for example if you work for the city of Springdale you're gonna be blue card certified not on day one but they're gonna get you through that in a pretty short period of time and one of the things with that is is you know the medic unit pulls up first due well they can they can you know make some decisions or it's not the land of milk and honey right so the four year fireman might be riding the front seat of the fire truck today and that's just what it is and the the the help or the solution is well then let's give them the tools and train them to the best we can to do the job. So what they might be missing a little bit of is the experience part of it. But as I as I've heard a lot of chiefs say in a lot of cases that could be good because the only thing they know is the system. So that's what they're going to go back to. They're not going to go back to maybe something that they had accidental success on and deviate from a system. So I think there's a there's tons of ways that you could use all of the curriculum and material that we have in the system whether you're talking about recruit training like these people have nothing or you're talking about I hired somebody out of a vocational school and they're still a recruit at the fire department and they're going to be on probation for a year. So then what does that cycle look like getting them on the same page and and you know teaching them all the parts pieces of how the fire department truly operates so just just to go back to that like sets and reps parts and pieces they put everybody in the same room and there's just a discussion right it's like nobody's nobody's it's not pinpointed on anybody but we're just gonna have a discussion about what are we looking at here and and then what does that mean and what can we do about it. So it kind of comes back to one thing that they talk about is what's the problem and what what can we do about it and then really what's c what's keeping us from solving the problem right so starting starting as soon as you possibly can with them is best to have the best outcome in the end. And I'll go back to what I kind of started with there shouldn't be a secret like we we you're just a fireman just ride back there and I I can't tell you how many times I've heard even locally company officers turn your radio off. Well how many reports have we read where firefighter was trying to call when their radio was off or they leave their radio off and now they know that they need to turn it on but when they turn it on it isn't on the right channel.

Preparing First Arrivers To Set The Incident

SPEAKER_01 28:18

I mean there's a list of things right so uh when we talk about this command systems and communications it it should start at some level right at right at day one and teaching them how to operate within the system that you operate in within your organization or within your region I I smile because the first time I ever keyed a radio I was given one during we had we had a number of incidents going I was a brand new firefighter given a radio and I had no idea how to talk on it. Like I I had an idea but no one ever told me like what do I even call myself how how do I refer to the other person and I was calling to report an attic fire in in a dwelling that I was in by myself because we had split up this this neighborhood was was hit with a storm. So I was made fun of mercilessly for years because of that radio traffic too. So I I didn't sound the most confident I'm sure when when that happened I think you make a good point about the first arrivers being the the initial IC and and at least sizing things up when it comes to those ambo crews. I know Chris came from a system where your first couple hundred shifts were spent on ambulance duty you and if you're arriving first you either have the opportunity to set us up for success and and at least give a good size up and evaluate those critical fire ground factors or if you do nothing and it becomes an alien abduction as they used to call it in Phoenix and the the crew just disappears you you're gonna be behind the eight ball because then you have no accountability. So there's different considerations I think for how quickly you're putting people into the field and and preparing them and I think the old conventions of oh we're gonna have you in this job for seven years before we move you off that's all gone now. I mean we we we were on a fast track for a while because of our turnover that you had to learn to drive before you left your probationary period because people were moving up so quickly. So I mean those old rules just don't apply so any other thoughts on that first arriver and and and ways to prepare them well again go back to what you expect them to do.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

If they show up first and you want them to make a good decision maybe about what they should do and maybe secondarily what they shouldn't do, then you should train them like the organization should put put some parameters around that put them in that situation paint that picture for them and then walk them through some the considerations in the system to make good decisions right and it I have experienced it where where it went very well from from a reasonably well communicated initial radio report from that that that ambulance showing up first or and I've participated in ones that didn't go well and there was at the very least an alien abduction there of that initial crew because they didn't they they didn't know what to do right and they're running circles around the ambulance when you when the engine pulls up and so we we are responsible for that and we need to be able to fix that in in the system. So we have to we have to demonstrate and understand what it is that they're going to show up on and then train them to that. So part of what they get in the academy needs to be hey all right you're you're the first arriver class if you will right and you're showing up here on on an ambulance uh or rescue in our system first this is what's expected this is what you should do let's practice it here we have the ability to to look at these at these videos or sets and reps as Josh was talking about and then do it in probation right and and then spend the time because in my system you you cannot work overtime in the field for the first six months right so that's three months of the academy roughly and then your first three months on the rig. And then when you hit that that six month mark now you're eligible to work overtime in the field. Well that overtime in the field can be on an ambulance that overtime in the field can be on a fire truck. And if you're working overtime in the ambulance and you're in the right seat of that ambulance and you show up in front of a working fire then the expectation is that you can effectively communicate that and at least lay out you know the the occupancy size type and height and then the the the fire ground conditions that are going on right there to set everybody else up for success. And there is an expectation that you take command until you're relieved right much like what the what the 1001 standard says. So I I think that like anything else if you want them to have a clue and you want them to have any reasonable likelihood of being successful you need to train them on it. You need to identify it clearly break it into some smaller pieces talk to them about it give them the chance to exercise it and you'll be amazed at what happens when you actually do that whether it's the you know being a first arriver and making decisions or just the first time they have the nozzle in their hand, right? They've got to be able to make good decisions when that happens. I do want to go to a point though and go like to the most severe and fundamental decision somebody's gonna have to make on the fire ground is when and why and how should I declare a Mayday. If I find myself in trouble I need to I need to make sure that I know how to do that and I need to get the the most reasonable way to get help coming to me is an effective ability to communicate that stuff. And then hey man what if my officer or what if what if my my my one of my partners has has a medical or a or something bad happens to us on the inside I need to be able to communicate well the first step in communicating that is making the decision to communicate it and recognizing that this is a problem and then I have a I have a process that I need to get on the radio and say made a made a who what where and needs right and I practice that I I have a lot more likelihood of being successful right so this goes from the the I'll what what appears to be or seems to be like the less critical but I I actually think it's hugely critical about when I'm going to open the nozzle to all the way to when the hell should I get on the radio and say mayday, mayday mayday right and so we have to work in between those two and and utilize those as the boundaries and try and hit everything in between them to be able to help folks make good decisions.

Mayday, Priority Traffic, And Radio Discipline

SPEAKER_02 34:54

Yeah so yeah Chris went to the a huge reason why we need to teach people to communicate and when to communicate and how to communicate and when I think about that it comes down to understanding how to activate the system. So everybody on the fire ground is operating as part of us of a system and we we are only as strong as our weakest link. So we want to teach those firefighters one like Chris was talking about how to help themselves but I'll I'll back it off all the way to we're we're laying off a supply line the firefighters at the hydrant and the hydrant's dead and they don't know what to say. I mean I've seen firemen run down the street to tell the pump operator before the hydrant won't come on and it's like you have that radio key it up right so going through the academy and talking about in your within your organization recruit or everyday fireman or 20 year veteran it doesn't matter it's priority traffic right we need to get that water supply I can't complete a task that I was assigned to get right so teaching them those parts and pieces and not just teaching them how to do it but why because when we start talking about the why then that will help with they're not hopefully going to break into radio traffic when they don't have something that's a priority when there's other communications you know when there's other communications going on and and and I'll back it all the way to the we're searching a building right and the firefighter comes upon a victim well it's priority traffic right we want them to communicate that we don't want we don't want the chaos necessarily inside of them just yelling hey I found the victim you know whatever if they call it right out everybody hears it right so if you're if you find a victim then what does that look like but if we want them to talk on the radio we have to teach them those parts pieces components the basics of that the basic fundamentals of it before they get to that exercise if you will so even in the recruit academy right we're gonna we've we've taught you all this basic stuff on the front end and then when you're running more like full scale company drills to get through all these evolutions and checkoffs that you need to get through to make it look more like the fire ground and a fire ground operation where those firefighters are oftentimes put in a position of making decisions on on the drill ground that that there's no question. So that the first time that they come upon a victim isn't the first time that they've called priority traffic I found a victim or I'm on I'm at this hydrant and the hydrant's dead or like Chris was talking about I have a May Day or somebody else you know is experiencing a Mayday. So when we teach them all the parts and pieces it's about you know them and their skill and ability to do it. But it's also important for the system because some people might not get on the radio at all but others somebody else could get on the radio and jam the whole radio up you know wanting to hold a conversation depending on you know what the situation is. So it comes back to training people and using a system and getting everybody on the same page because no one of us or no single company is is really going to outdo or outperform the system. It's everybody working together. So if they're gonna operate in the hazard zone then they need to be part of the system and understand understand and be able to perform all of those basic functions.

SPEAKER_01 38:11

And as you guys are talking I I think you know really radio discipline starts that first time you hand that recruit the radio right and and when we start talking about good news reporting or the snowflakes that want to talk on the radio all the time that really starts on day one. I I think another thing that that you that just spurred a thought with me is how we used to train versus how we train right now because we at least our training was very evolution based. Oh we're gonna go burn we're gonna go stretch a line we're gonna go throw ladders which are all good skills but once we're bringing that together in multi-company training uh even in the recruit academy if we have multiple squads or units in the academy that needs to be done just like we do it in the field. So it looks like we do it in the field where that's the scrimmage right so you know we have somebody as IC number one sizing up get get giving all all the functions that I see number one does and then we have an IC number two come in do that command transfer so then they're used to talking to people outside and and that's where we start to probably quash the give me two more minutes chief that we we hear so often because now the the even the recruit on the inside's matching up with hey that chief on the outside seeing things that I don't see that's why they're telling me to get out of the building right now and I'm not gonna ask for two more minutes to you know we almost got this because there's other things going on that I don't even know about.

Problem Solving Under Pressure

SPEAKER_00 39:35

So I I think building those disciplines uh very early on will will help them understand you know the the first time that they're on the fire ground exactly what that's gonna look like Chris so the it's the decision making part of it isn't always connected to just talking on the radio it's a bit the the the decision to talk on the radio and communicate is huge. There's no doubt about it. But there's a lot of decisions about problem solving and I come across this issue I wasn't meant necessarily anticipating it have we spent enough time in the decision making process of solving problems the hey I I'm not getting water out of this hydrant problem. I'm not uh my example my personal example is the first working fire I went on out of the academy in my first couple shifts in the middle of the night in a in a first do that's you know what a a pretty pretty interesting first do in the city of Phoenix and the the there's a there's a place where you go over the train tracks and you know if the engineer hits it right you can get the truck all off the ground. Well yeah we took that route and when I got out to take the hydrant there was no there was no hydrant wrench. It was back at the railroad tracks where we just where we just went airborne right and so I had been taught the problem solving uh skills of of oh where do we keep the spare uh hydrant wrenches and you know all this other stuff and I was able to hey stop and and then then address it and then move go on our way it slows us down 15 seconds right but and that that had nothing to do with me that had everything to do with the system and the way I was trained. So we want to spend time on and and clearly identify here are decision making the uh the of the work here's decision making of problem solving and then here's decision making that may require some communication right and that may you you may want to and that communication could be just turning to your officer and going hey we have a victim right victim victim victim to them and they're going to manage that communication or I'm actually in this bedroom by myself and I do come across a victim oh I probably should communicate this I I don't want them in there necessarily that way right without the ability to communicate with their officer but if it happens it happens right and and then being able to communicate that and take that to you know times when their welfare is in question, right? That's Mayday stuff. And then back it all the way up to the simple stuff of all right when should I open this line? Should I force the door now and then pull it closed or should I wait to force the door and you know just simple decisions that we're gonna have to make that we if we don't identify them as decisions or we don't identify them as a potential that we need to train people on, then we will miss that opportunity and then they'll have questions, concerns, or they'll do it through trial and error rather than trying to help them make a better decision on the front end. And again like we've said that builds to a more effective decision making as a moving up into the company officer role moving up into the operator engineer operator role it just it tends to make them way smarter at what they do.

SPEAKER_02 42:55

So I got I got two things as we come closer to the end here to to just talk about and it comes to really intercompany communications but really setting the stage from the beginning on why we do what we do. So air management big deal so when we talk about recruit academy right the the people setting the fires why do they always come out with their bell going off or their bells inside the building going off like well we're we're just sending a bad message right to the people so are you taking air management seriously or is it just lip service? So you know teaching people what does that really look like why is it the way that it is and like Chris said it doesn't have to be communications over the radio but it's I'm the firefighter Chris is the officer and it's like hey Cap, I'm at I'm I'm below 50% air or you know whatever it is right so having that conversation in a recruit class and then when when firefighters get to the companies what is that company officer's expectation uh of that which really which really aligns with the organization's you know expectation so you know if you get to 50% and that's when we're going to start communicating as firefighters at a bare minimum to the company officer that you know we're getting low on air what does that look like and then the other one is you know accountability. So that that's a whole topic I think in itself of at the task level what does accountability really look like and then at the tactical and strategic level I mean it shouldn't be a secret that the firefighters fire recruits understand that there's accountability at all three levels. And you know far too often it's like well I I have this tag on my helmet and I put it on that passport and the captain gives it to whoever and that's that's the end of it. And it's like well no accountability is at all three levels and it's it's kind of hard to have one with well it's not functional to have one without The other. It's using it all the way across the board. So you know, the task level, I bring it up there because of that voice vision and touch, right? Like you're the firefighter and you should be in contact, voice vision and touch with your company officer or your company at all times. And then organizationally, well, what does that mean? Well, if you're again, if you're back to the recruit class and you're and you're having firefighters that can be out of that, not within voice vision or touch in the recruit class, and it's like, oh, well, it's a burn building, that's just what we do. It's like, well, you're you're teaching them bad habits right from the get-go. So we shouldn't be surprised when things don't go the way we want them to out on the fire ground. So those were just two other things to to hit on a little bit before we you know wrap up today.

SPEAKER_01 45:32

Kristen, do you have any uh final thoughts or anything else you wanted to hit on on this topic before we wrap?

Air Management And Accountability Standards

SPEAKER_00 45:39

I'll just talk about the the organizational perspective of this. I would hope that any fire department, I don't care what size, if it's if it's 10 people or if it's 3,000 people, right? Is you have to take a deliberate approach of when, how, and what you're gonna train your folks to be able to do. Decision making is going to be an integral part of their work throughout their entirety of their career. So she we should probably then figure out what is the best way to help them make good decisions from the very beginning. And that is going to influence and give us a better predictability of what kind of decisions they're gonna make as officers and incident commanders. And so we see, you know, too much right now, I think, at least me personally, see way too much of poor decision, poor fire ground decision making, creating big problems or big challenges for us. And you can go back and kind of in an autopsy look at the system and go, okay, where are they effectively training and where aren't they? And and oftentimes you can point directly to the the area in which the or the the level at which the decision was made, the task, tactical, or strategic level, and then identify where they're not effectively training. And I'm going to connect leadership to that, right? Because it's not just training, it has to be a leadership thing as well. So this topic has we may be discussing, you know, recruit training or or or training newest firefighters in decision making, but it it's pervasive throughout your entire organization. It needs to be recognized as that, so you can have a holistic process of how you're going to do this, right? And how you're going to make decisions. And decision making is an integral element throughout the entirety of the organization on the fire ground or not. And so it the quicker we we we come to terms with it and the quicker we are able to build a system or a process to be able to do that. Trust me, it'll never be perfect, right? It'll you'll always be in a case of trying to fix yourselves or fix it. That's okay. That's what it's supposed to be. It's infinite. But those are the those are the things that organizations really need to start to pay attention to and and you will see a true benefit from it when you when you when you start to improve though that that that training and decision in decision making when it comes to the fire ground.

SPEAKER_01 48:13

One thing I want to back up before we get to our timeless tactical truth, Chris, if you could just describe, because uh we dropped this in there, and I'm I think a lot of people probably haven't heard the story before. What is an alien abduction? When when when you see an ambulance or another crew, describe what that was because that was a term I first heard in Phoenix.

SPEAKER_00 48:34

So my recruit class, we just recently got together for for a lunch. We'd do that every, you know, once a year or so. We're you know, now we're getting really old, so it's becoming more entertaining to do that. And it's fun because one of the guys I went through the academy with, his dad was one of my battalion chiefs for uh quite a while. And when my partner and I we were assigned a rescue nine, that's an ambulance in the Phoenix system. We had to name them rescues, so we made all the guys working on them feel better about the job they were doing, right? So I we vividly recalled Chief Taylor yelling at us at a fire because the first thing he saw when he showed up was our our ambulance across the street from the apartments that where we had the fire. Every door was open. There was clothing scattered all about, everything we had pulled our gear out, we got our gear on, got our tools. It it appeared that we were had been pulled over by uh pirates and completely robbed of all of our firefighting equipment on that rig. And we were nowhere to be found because we were working, you know, we we were on the second floor. And then when he finally caught up to us later in the incident, he was yelling at us because you know, they had just bought us these fancy new yellow pelican flashlights. You know, uh we never herded for equipment like that in the Phoenix Fire Department. And I believe my partner was standing in the middle of a kitchen table pulling ceiling with his new flashlight because we didn't have the tool we needed right there at that second, and he started screaming at us. But yeah, that's where the term alien abduction comes from.

SPEAKER_01 50:12

I love it. Thank you. I didn't want to leave people in the dark because uh we we dropped that in there, and uh, I know it's a term that we've used before, but I wanted to give some definition to that. All right, timeless tactical truth. Timeless Tactical Truth from Alan Brunicini, and this comes from the Timeless Tactical Truth book. Safety zones and escape routes work best when everyone knows where they are at the moment they need them. Safety zones and escape routes work best when everyone knows where they are at the moment they need them. I guess it goes back to the educating the folks on what we're doing, why we're doing it, where things are on the fire ground.

Organizational Systems For Better Decisions

SPEAKER_02 51:01

So one I'll I can start that with that's that's why we say that we communicate the incident action plan to everybody on the fire ground, that everybody's on the same page and that there is no secrets, that everybody just doesn't show up and just start doing what they're gonna do. That we get there and we identify critical fire ground factors. And in some cases, those are factors of this is good, that we can have a safe refuge place. And in some cases, it's like, no, we're not gonna operate there or in that area at all. So one one thing just to bring up during this is so many people say that blue card is just a communications program, and blue card is an entire system of you know eight the eight functions of command where communications is just one of those eight, you know, parts and pieces, right? So that's kind of my two cents on that.

Alien Abduction Explained

SPEAKER_00 52:01

These make me yeah, these make me laugh because uh the boss was the master at stating the obvious very simply and eloquently, but causing you to go, oh yeah, yeah, uh that is true, right? It's not an escape plan or an area of safe refuge or any of that if we don't know about it, right? It's not it's not usable in any way. If if I'm if I'm stretching off a standpipe uh into a a smoky hallway, and I don't know and understand that I that if if things start to get bad, I'm gonna back out to the safe area of safe refuge in that hallway. If I don't know and understand that, we don't actually communicate it. I don't know how to identify it, we don't train on it, then then if I don't understand it, it ain't gonna make me any better. I'm not gonna be able to use it effectively at all, right? And so, yeah, it makes me think of of wildland, you know, LCES, the and you know, having an escape route and having a lookout and and and all those things. Well, it makes sense that that's part of a well-practiced command system. Like Josh said, I'm communicating an IAP, and I may have tactical level bosses and task-level supervisors, you know, managing and organizing, say, okay, if this happens, here's where we're gonna go. Or even simple things like a round trip ticket. And we're gonna go in there and we're gonna work our ass off to get in the building. We're gonna work our ass off doing whatever it is, flowing water, trying to control the fire, you know, what have you on the inside. But I have no plan and I'm not gonna communicate or be prepared when we should leave, right? That doesn't make any sense. So I need to have that that that that well-versed thought and and planning as a supervisor is no, we're gonna go in here, I'm gonna do these things. This is when we're gonna look at our air and pay attention to it. I'm gonna ask these triggers, they are gonna help remind me, and then we're going to be able to get out before our low air alarms going off, right? So it's it's the the epitome of the round trip uh ticket. It's the epitome of no, we we have to understand if this doesn't go well, these are the this is where we can get back to that's safe, or areas where we're we're where we will be protected, whether it's in a big building or hell, even in a small building. I've had to back into places in small buildings. So let's get out of this flow path and let's knock this down before we move forward, right? So if we don't talk about it, it's not part of the standard process, then then it's they're pretty much useless.

SPEAKER_02 54:34

And I think to add to that, a lot of this can happen on the front end before the bell even rings, right? So I mean if we're if we're talking about this month, we're gonna talk about multifamily apartment buildings with center hallways. Well, where where are, like Chris said, where are these places of safe refuge? Well, the fire apartments on the right hand side, and we have we've had some kind of an event where it's blowtorching into the hallway now. Well, there's 20 other apartments in this hallway that may be the safe refuge place for us. Or we can, if we possibly can get there, back into a stairwell. But the time to think about that isn't when it happens to you. It it should be in your playbook before it happens. Like, and we've we've all been in that position. Like, we were not expecting it to get like this, and then you're trying to figure out what you're gonna do. And a lot of times, depending on well, building type and construction, when we talk about critical factors, we we can have some of these discussions about here's here's options and things to think about without having to jump out of a window.

SPEAKER_01 55:41

Gentlemen, thanks for another thought provoking discussion today. Appreciate you guys uh taking time to be on the B Shipper Podcast. And for everyone out there, if you have either a topic you'd like us to uh address or any questions, our emails are in the show notes. You can get a hold of us in time. And uh until next time, thanks so much for listening to the B Shifter.